In the winter, keeping a high rod tip while swinging can really slow down the swing and keep it deep- right where it needs to be fished

Wow, pretty hard to believe it is already 2017. As we go forward in the new year, I thought I'd take some time to reflect on what 2016 had to offer. On the whole, fishing was steady- not the greatest run I've ever seen, but far from the worst. During the spring run, the Chagrin fished much better than the Grand though we did have some lights out days on the larger water. This was partially due to the high water the Grand saw nearly all spring long, and by the time the levels dropped consistently, the water was warming up fast. Another good thing we saw last spring was a strong presence of 3 to 6 pound fish, though we found quite a few much larger. This good showing of one and two winter fish in the mix last spring should mean that the 2017 spring run should have a high number of three winter fish, the 8 to 12 pound plus fish. 

During the fall run, we saw the reverse. Very low water for nearly the entire month of October. This kept most fish from entering until around the last week of the month. Interestingly enough we did see quite a few salmon in the Erie creeks in October, including Pinks, Cohos, and Kings. Then when we started getting water consistently, the Catt stayed offline for most of the fall season. This resulted in our focus on the smaller area creeks for the majority of the fall season, with only a few days spent on the Catt during good conditions. Like the spring, the fall run numbers were not the highest we've ever seen, but the fishing remained consistent and generally resulted in a handful of fish landed per day per angler.

Probably the brightest note of the fall season was the high prevalence of good sized lake run browns in the Erie creeks. This is something that I've been noticing more and more over the last three seasons. While steelhead numbers may be a bit lower than normal, we are more than making up for it with trophy browns. Our biggest Erie brown this season was ten pounds, but we lost a few much larger fish, and it seems like the fish averaged somewhere near eight. We're pretty stoked about this fishery as it continues to develop, and would like to see where it goes. The strain New York stocks is domestic browns. There are other strains available that grow much larger and migrate further up river than lazy domestics (wouldn't it be nice to see some 30 pound seeforellen browns?!), but only time will tell.

Anyways, spent the first few days of the New Year hitting the Catt. The water was up, but the visibility was just good enough to get me out of the house. Didn't find any out there in the cold, but boy what a beautiful time to spend on the water. Enjoy it while you can. April will be here before you know it.

 - D

Well we are in the dead of summer now. Still a little more than two months out, and with daily highs in the 90's, theres not a lot of steelhead fishing to be had! To pass the time, why not focus on filling your boxes for fall? When I sit at the bench, many times the fly that I create or the pattern I tie uses difficult materials or techniques. The more I fish, the more I like to experiment and use rhea, lady amhearst, and other materials that can be troublesome. But again, the more I fish, the more I have come to realize that these flies are tied more for my enjoyment than the fish's. A steelhead is not a particulary picky fish. Find a well rested and unharrassed fish and it will more than likely eat whatever you put in front of it, whether it is a traditional salmon fly, a marabou spey, or a simple woolly bugger.

Recently the flies I've been cranking out have been old reliables that I've fished for years. Enter the marabou spey. The fly above is known as a hobo spey. They are relatively quick on the vise, can be tied in many colors and weighted or unweighted, and they catch fish. Pretty much all you do is spin a couple marabou feathers in different colors onto a hook and tie it off. Recently I've been using more Scandinavian style overwing flies such as the whiskey hangover- to good success, and haven't really fished a hobo spey in a while. But as I've been tying them lately, I remember some of my first takes I ever had swinging streamers. A marabou pattern caught my first Cattaraugus Steelhead, swung on a light sinktip. Sometimes in slower tailouts, they can even be fished on floating line and long leader as sparser tied marabou sinks well when waterlogged if given a quick strip to get it under the surface. It also has a ton of movement, and puts fish on the board. With each fly I tie, I can feel my excitement grow.

So while you sit at the vise this summer and fill your box. Tie up some old patterns that you used to fish years ago. We go through cycles. We push the envelope with the newest and most up to date techniques and materials. It leads to progression and personal growth as an angler. But growth without remembering our roots is meaningless. One of the best ways to see just how far you've come is to revisit some of those old fly patterns. Along with the nostalgia it will bring, I guaranteed you fished those flies for a reason. 

Me, I'm pretty fired up about getting another tug on a hobo spey.

With so many technological advances in the fly fishing industry it's so easy to get caught up by the next new thing and forget last years gear all together. While I am just as guilty of this as others, I do try to go through older gear to find a use for it. Maybe it's as simple as picking up a ten or fifteen year old rod, admiring the cracks in the finish and pits in the cork- the marks of a well fished rod. A rod with many stories to tell. Or maybe it's going through a box of old old fly lines, chopping sections up to use as light shooting heads on stream trout rods.

Recently while visiting my grandfather, we walked into his basement rod collection, my eyes fell to a two peice orange 8 1/2 foot fiberglass 8 weight fly rod, and the white mate rod next to it. My dad had told me over and over again throughout the years how my grandfather bought those rods for himself and my dad. The white one was Opa's and the orange one was dad's. Those rods used to be in our house. In fact the first steelhead I ever caught was on the Grand River in Ohio. The fish took a white jig-fly under an indicator. I was fishing witout any weight, and probably three or four feet off the bottom, so that fish had to move pretty far to take the fly. As I picked up the rod, I noticed the finish was peeling, the wraps were fraying, the ferules were corroded and stained. The rod bore the testiment of age from cork to tip. So I took it. And I messed around. Peeled all the wraps, removing the rusty eyelets. The more I stripped the rod down, the more the blank breathed. I took a dremmel and cut the dry and cracked cork and the stained and corroded reel seat. Finally with a fine plast wire brush, I dremmeled off the yellowing and peeling finish. The rod was stripped down to the blank.

I've built a few rods from blanks and kits before, so I knew what needed to be done. As I wrapped new thread on chrome guides and eyelets, and polished the metal ferules back to a shine, the rod was alive again. With a new perma-gloss finish, the blank shined in the light of my workbench. All I needed was a good reel seat. And today it came. With five minute epoxy, I fixed the reel seat to the blank. All that I need now is a matching clicker-pawl and I have a throwback steelhead setup. Digging through my boxes I found a gold Pflueger clicker-pawl. The pairing is beautiful.

My grandfather bought that rod from K-Mart in the 70's for what I'm guessing was less than twenty-five bucks back then. It's was a no-name rod company. Some fleeting sports supplier that faded into obscurity. The Pflueger I remember picking up when I got into steelheading in the early to mid 90's. I spent less than fifty bucks. The total setup expenditure, including the replacement parts for the refurbished rod, is less than $125. In an era of rods that cost upwards of a thousand dollars, and reels to match costing hundreds, it's refreshing to find something and work with it. With a little love, hard work and elbow grease, you can make a one of a kind. An original. The rod and reel are great. For anyone who has never tried, casting glass is slow and full of melody. And clicker-pawls have matched steelhead as long as the fish have been chased with the fly. So maybe this year, instead of scouring the websites for the newest and hottest gear, we explore our man caves, sports closets, and garages. You just may find something exciting. I found a great rod and reel for a dry line.

Setting the epoxied reel seat

It'll catch a fish or two more...

Over the past few days, we've had a weather system move through dumping rain and even snow at times. The water is both a blessing and a curse for our creeks and rivers. On larger systems like the Catt, it seems like a heavy dew will blow her out. So a half inch of rain definitely will. On Friday, I headed out early to fish. Even the little creeks were high and dirty, so I knew the mainstem of the Catt would be. But I headed up anyways. When I got there, no surprise, she was flowing a chalky milk, with only a few inches of visibility. But it was a beautiful day and I checked out some spots.

Low and behold, some of her main feeder tributaries were running clear and with decent flow! These smaller fingers attract fish when flows are right, and the flow was right so I wanted to check it out. I started at the pull off and fished my way down. It seems the more I fish larger water, the more I forget just how fun swinging streamers on a small creek can be. As I worked the water, I came to familiar runs where I have pulled fish out from log jams and cut banks. As I reached an hard turn with a cut bank on the other side I paused and watched the sun break through the clouds. This particular stretch has been good to me. I swung my streamer through anticipating the solid pull of a stout fish, only to be rewarded by my line coming through to a stop. No takes on this swing. Or so I thought. As I positioned my anchor for a small snap t cast, I watched a decent resident brown in full spawning colors come out and eat it, the streamer shaking in his mouth as he darted back to the deep. With so much slack in my line I could not get a set on him and my streamer pulled to the surface to be cast again. A few feet down below, I noticed a redd in the tailout, maybe 15 inches across. Looks like he had a mate. You just never know what you'll find when you explore.

When I reached the mouth, where the feeder dumps into the main stem. The clear water extended down the river right bank for several hundred yards. The strip, maybe only 15 feet wide made a beautiful seam between the heavy silt flow and the spring feed water. In these conditions fish will sit right near the bank in that seam, and finding these places can often save what would otherwise be a skunk. Because I often fish this stretch of river, I knew that the creek mouth formed a slot maybe a few feet deep down the river right, while the middle was a large gravel riffle only calf deep for quite some time before forming a deep pool. Despite the visibility, I waded out to the center, casting to the right bank and swinging into the dirty. Each step down, I knew the slot deepened. There had to be a fish somewhere along that line. Before I knew it I was a couple hundred yards down from where I started, standing in near waist deep water. My consciousness began to warn me, and I had reached the point where I was no longer confident wading further. I wanted to keep fishing. I know there are fish somewhere along that seam. But I turned back. As anglers our best asset is ourselves. Our instincts and intuitions. It helps us pick the right fly. It helps us fish the right water. It helps us catch fish. And it tells us when to turn back. And now was that time for me. To continue would not be safe. Though I took a risk fishing as far down as I had, I only did so because I was confident in my abilities and knew the terrain. Without that confidence, we second guess and make mistakes. And no fish is worth the greatest mistake of all. Though the contrary is often said as epitaphs to the fishing partners we lose in life, there really are no steelhead in heaven.

 Some pics of scenery.

The seam between the the spring and the mainstem.

Beautiful scenery

With cooler nights and rain over the weekend, on Sunday I went out to explore one of the local Ohio Creeks. Though the flow was perfect, the recent rains had muddied the waters. In the early season, even a little bit of rain can color the water. It generally takes a few good showers to bump the flow up enough so that the silt deposited during spring storms on the riverbank flushes out. Water temperature was in the upper 50's though. I'd expect the first push of fish to be nosing around the mouth waiting for the next pulse of water to start shooting up.

On a second note, a good buddy of mine, Mark Gaissert, passed away Saturday night in Alaska. He and I guided together for 5 years in Alaska and was great fisherman, guide and friend. We spent countless days chasing trout, salmon, or wild Alaskan steelhead. Mark you will be missed. Hope the runs are good up there. Wet a fly on Sunday for you buddy. No steelhead yet. Here's a pic for you bud.