Elk Creek, Erie County, 29Mar2008

[albatross]

JackM, AcristicKid, and I headed up to Upper Elk for some early spring Steel today.

We reached the stream about 10AM and the stream was lower and clearer than we expected, a nice emerald green. Air temps were in the mid twenties when we arrived and the sun was shining. As the day warmed into the high 30s, the fishing began to pick up and we all landed some nice fish. Unfortunately, the warm sunshine began to melt the snowpack and creek began to rise, cloud, and cool. With the cooler water temps and lower visibility the fishing slowed down again.

Here is a pick of Jack's first fish of the day. He caught it on an olive Zoo Cougar he tied early this morning.

Who needs an early trout opener when you can catch fish like this? :-D

 

[JackM]

A good time as always sharing the 3 hour ride. Greg covered the water and weather. I will just mention that there are still plenty of fish in the creek. We fished downstream from the Sterretania Access. I coaxed a couple older fellows into netting a fish for me by offering it to them once I saw I had him fair-hooked, then I ask the net man to snap a photo of what I believed was my largest steelhead to date. Looking now at the pic, it doesn't look quite as large as I remembered it.

Here are a couple of Greg with one of his fish and the picture I had the fellow snap of mine:

 

[albatross]

One thing we haven't mentioned yet that might be important for someone else considering a trip to the tribs is that the PFBC has stocked the smolts. There are tens of thousands of steelhead in the five to nine inch range in the streams.

The smolts seem to settle into slack water, they were not a problem in riffles or pocket water. Sometimes adult steelhead will hold with a cloud of smolts around them and its hard to get your fly to the larger fish. I probably landed 80 to 100 of the little guys yesterday. I tried using a streamer to minimize the bycatch of smolts, but, bevieve it or not, you can catch them on a #6 Zoo Cougar.

 

[Acristickid]

Sorry for the belated responce. (limited technology at this time)

Good time. I found myself walking around for a long time trying to find a home on the creek. After much searching returned to the "road hole" and managed to land two steelhead as soon as I put on a crystal meth. The third fish took it with him and never head another hit after I lost that fly.

Too bad I did not spend more time fishing with Jack and Greg. Hopefully next time. Paul