I had been talking for years about fishing for steelhead in Erie, PA but had never made the trip to the fabled fishery known as “steelhead alley”. I personally find it shocking because I’ve fished for virtually every species that swims in the state of Pennsylvania and have fished many states as far west as California.

My neighbor Dave is an avid steelhead angler who knows his way around the various tributaries of Lake Erie. When he invited me, for about the 100th time, to fish for fall steelhead this past weekend I couldn’t find a reason to pass up the opportunity. I spent Friday evening packing my fly fishing gear and even my backpacking stove to make a creek side lunch!

In the dead of the night, we arrived at a pull off along a winding country road. It was at least an hour before daylight. Much to our surprise, we where the first to arrive at this particular popular creek section. I had taken my headlamp out of my fishing pack a couple weeks ago so would have to make the walk without light. Dave had is headlamp but it did me little good as I stumbled and rumbled over a mile through woods and water to reach a less frequented pool where Dave has had luck in past years. We were the first on the scene and took up our position along a choke point at the tail end of the pool! It always pays to be first!

Rain a few days prior had the creek up and stained. We expected the fish to be moving in great numbers through our fishing area. Dave drew first and only blood of the day taking this nice chrome fresh steelhead on an egg pattern. He hooked 4 others but didn’t land them. We saw all but one of the hooked fish. The coloration of the fish made it clear that most fish in the pool where “old fish” not fresh run fish. We speculated that the run from recent rains hadn’t made it up to our section of the creek quite yet. Maybe we should have located closer to the lake? Hind site is 20/20. I plugged away the remainder of the day with not even a bump or hiccup from my indicator.

My favorite aspect of traveling to fish is visiting local shops, restaurants and angler hang-outs. Poor Richard’s is one of those long standing landmarks will known to Erie steelhead anglers. It ain’t much to look at but they have all the equipment, flies, lures and information needed for a successful day of steelheading. Heck they’ll even clean, smoke or freeze your catch for you! Dave and I are all catch and release but I can’t fault any angler for wanting some fresh fish in their diet!

We checked into the hotel after dark and I quickly starting rethinking and reorganizing for day two of our trip. We would fish a few hours in the morning before returning home. I felt that I had a better handle on the flies that I needed, the float system I should be running and the weight I would need to get my flies down to the fish. I bought some flies, some egg patterns and a different assortment of split shot so that hopefully I’d do a little better tomorrow. I don’t look happy in the photo! Ha ha!.. but it was a learning process. I was totally rapped up in my thoughts at this point. Hopefully day two would be better!