I’ve had a 10 year love affair…with a fishing lure. The Worden’s Flatfish, made by the Yakima Bait Company in Yakima, Washington. There are other lures that are essentially the same; the Kwikfish by Luhr Jensen, the Lazy Ike, and some others. No one offers as many sizes and colors as the Original Flatfish. Fitting that a lure that is so deadly on Erie tributaries for our lake run Steelhead comes from a state with arguably the best ocean run Steelhead fishing in the world.

Years ago when my grandfather passed away I was lucky enough to get much of what was in his tackle box. He was a lifetime Salmon and Steelhead fisherman in the Pacific Northwest and mostly Oregon on famed rivers like the Columbia, the Willamette, and the Sandy. I was never old enough to fish with the man, but I inherited many of his Flatfish lures. When I first started fishing for Lake Erie Steelhead a decade ago, my thought was if these lures worked for him for Steelhead in the Northwest, they were going to work for me in Erie. Yes the fish and fishing are a little different, but the reasoning behind using these lures is the same.

Looking into his tackle box I noticed a pattern. Different sizes of the same color and different colors of the same size. I knew I wouldn’t be pulling out a 4 inch Flatfish lure to throw to 5 and 10 lb Steelhead in the smaller streams of Erie. I did know that I would take along the smaller sizes in a few different colors and find out if they would get any attention. There are so many fish to present a lure to in Erie….I was going to find out if one of them would react to it.

After catching my first Erie Steelhead on a jig given to me without knowing what I was doing at all I explored all of my options for my 2nd trip. I got some egg sacs, some emarald shiners, and the only thing that actually made the trip in my vest and didn’t come from a bait shop, were 2 Flatfish lures in the 1.5 inch size. Yellow with red dots and bright orange. I figured I’d start small and go bigger if I had to, but knowing that I would be fishing low and clear water I figured it wouldn’t be too much different from bass fishing; downsize and finesse fish when you face tough conditions like low and clear water.

I had all the fish I could want in front of me to test out the lure. Tied one on the moment I hit the stream without even thinking about using eggs or shiners. The second cast I made I hooked up. For the next 6 hours I threw the same lure over and over in front of fish at an upstream angle and when I wasn’t hooking up with fish, I had them following all the way back to my feet. I knew then of at least one technique I would always be using on Erie Steelhead.

Over the years I experimented with colors and sizes and eventually built an arsenal of my bread and butter colors in the right sizes. I figured out colors to use in relation to sunlight or lack thereof, sizes in relation to current and time of year, and whether to cast and retrieve at an angle or swing the lure across current depending on how fish were holding.

Every season I pick up on one or two more wrinkles to using this lure effectively and it now has become something that stays in my vest every month of the Steelhead calendar. The only time I can’t use it? Ice fishing.

This lure is one way to get the most explosive strikes, the fastest charging fish, and generally the biggest, baddest fish in the streams from September through April. If you tire of watching a float all day and drifting flies or bait past fish that have way too much time to think about hitting, put on this lure. Work it correctly and fish will chase, strike, and give you the most exciting moments you can have on the Erie tributaries. I still have many days where I am throwing the same Flatfish for 8 hours and hooking up all day walking up and down a stream.

In the next post I’ll give you the basics, a complete how-to, color choices, sizes, all you need to know to hook fish on this lure.