Archive for July, 2010

Jamey and his son Cameron visited Erie for a guided trip with me last December and did very well in some tough conditions. See my report with pics of Cameron’s fish from 12/5/09 here: http://eriesteelheadexperience.com/archives/523

Cameron landed a few right off the bat and persisted in the afternoon in low water tossing Flatfish lures to holding fish. Many adult fishermen would have given up by then as the bit was slowing down and many kids his age would have been back in the truck warming up their toes. Cameron targeted fish until a 10 lb 30″ buck inhaled his lure! Him and the fish are now on the cover of Pennsylvania Outdoor Journal! Congratulations on the fish and being the envy of many anglers throughout the state that have never made the trip to Erie for king sized Trout Cameron! Even for those that have many have not gone home with such a great fish.

I love guiding father/son trips and this is exactly why. It’s like reliving my childhood all over again when a young angler hooks into fish like this. I wish I had the chance at that age to even look at a fish like the Steelhead. Looking forward to another great year on the streams!

-JB

Don’t believe it? Just ask the locals who will be standing on the lake shore throwing spoons around the stream mouths at 5 AM the first week of August. Not many, but a few will be doing it, and hooking up with an early stray runner or two the entire month. Leading up to Labor Day there will be more trying it and some will be looking for the first fish to enter a stream. Those first few days of September someone will catch one in a stream, word will spread, and the insanity will begin. The times I’ve stood in Walnut Creek and had boaters stopping on their way to the launch to watch me fight a fresh chromer with no one else on the stream are priceless. Last year the cooler summer brought fish in the first few days of September. I landed 7 fish on the 2nd, including 1 on the first cast of the season, and 3 in the first 10 minutes.

This year should be different. With the mostly hot and dry summer we might not see more than a few fish come in until the 2nd half of September and maybe not any substantial runs until the last week of the month. THAT COULD EASILY CHANGE! Fish will run for seemingly no good reason in the first month and in 10 years I’ve seen first run fish running in inches of bathwater warm trickles with temperatures still in the 80′s and no rain in site. We’ve also had cool days and good rain and didn’t see a fish until the third week of September. There is normal, and there is Steelhead normal, which means nothing is really normal at all about how and when these fish decide to come in. More often than not it’s predictable, but ask a weatherman how predictable the weather is. You get the point.

As stated previously I will put up a couple of posts in the next 2 weeks dealing with using Flatfish lures for Steelhead throughout the season and tying jigs and using them effectively. These are both reaction lures that for me are the best way to trigger bites all months of the year. Drift fishing is something I’ve become skilled at because I had to, and because it offers other options. But I am gunning at fish all year first and foremost using jigs and Flatfish lures to get the most explosive and violent strikes possible from the most aggressive fish in the stream. That’s why I love fishing for these fish, and I want to show people how to do it. Steelhead fishing doesn’t have to mean staring at a float or indicator all day, drifting over and over the same water and same fish. Using Flatfish and jigging with one’s own personal touch, technique, and presentation can have you hooking up all day, even with fish that have been fished over for hours by anglers who gave it up right as you stepped in the same drift or hole.

Show fish what they haven’t seen, in a way they haven’t seen it, and you’re onto something. Show them a different jig than the last guy who showed them a jig, use it in a different way. Target each and every fish in the pack. Swing them in current, downsize or upsize to draw interest. Do the math, prove the equasion, and catch fish in any conditions.

For the Flatfish lure it’s just as important to use it properly. It’s not bass fishing a crankbait. It’s not a dummy lure that can be tossed in the water in any size or color, and in any direction, and catch fish. It’s a tool. Use it like one. You wouldn’t use a phillips head screwdriver on a flathead screw, so don’t throw a Flatfish lure in a place where it shouldn’t be thrown, or the wrong color the wrong time of day or in the wrong lighting, or a lure size that doesn’t match water speed and water temperature.

There is an art to using these lures just like there is to jigging, and just like there is to getting a perfect drift with the perfect fly or bait. I’ve spent 10 years using these lures on Erie tributaries. A West Coast technique that I have adapted to our small streams to trigger fish into striking in the toughest of conditions. Windy day? No problem. Ultra-low water? No problem. But where they really shine is casting to early season fish that are hot from the lake, and in current. I’ll go over these situations as well as sizing the lures, color choice, and presentation in current, slow pools, and fishing them at the right angles of retrieve.

I already have reorganized just my Flatfish box for the season as I will be using them the most the first month. And like any fisherman even though I have a proven arsenal of basic colors to use I have 9 more on order from the lure company. A few that I know will be hits and a few that are complete guesses. In all honesty all of the colors they make fall into 4-5 categories and if any lure is presented properly they will all catch fish, but there are tried and true choices in my box that will get the job done each and every time they come out. So are there days when color may not matter? Probably a few. Does it matter enough to be more selective when choosing a color and match it to all of the different variables? YES, and I will tell you why the next post. Much more to come.

Back to fishing for everything that swims until the Steelhead arrive. Hope everyone’s summer fishing has been as good as mine. I don’t want to wish the summer away yet, but a crisp October day of casting to fresh run fish sounds like a beautiful thing right now, and I’m looking forward to blowing the dust off my Scotch collection that’s sat on the back shelf for the summer, to close out that very day.

-JB