April Showers...

Man, is it ever going to stop raining? Don't get me wrong, after last year's hot, dry weather it is nice to see things starting out cool and wet this year... But man, I haven't been on the river in almost a month. Even the lakes I like to fish have been messed up by the heavy rain. Let's hope these April showers lead to some very nice flowers (and fish) come May... :)

This past week I finally had enough of watching WFN, cruising fishing websites, and just plain thinking about fishing... I had to get out. Fortunately, I got just the right opportunity to sneak out for a quick trip on Tuesday morning.

There was a break in the rain, so I quickly put my hip boots on and headed to the creek... A good opportunity to re-visit some of my old brown trout friends.

Just as I arrived at the stream it started raining again--figures, lol. Fortunately the creek looked nice, so I decided to fish in spite of the rain.
Luckily, it didn't take long to get into my first fish. Actually it came on my second cast--a beautiful, hard-fighting brown in the 13 to 14 inch range. After landing and releasing that beautiful fish I was happy and could have left the stream content with the awesome fish I had just caught. Still, I decided I should fish a little bit longer. So I gave it about 20 minutes and hit a couple more likely looking holes. After I had landed my 4th pretty little brownie it was time to head home--best to minimize my interaction with this small, delicate system on this day.

Hopefully by my next entry, things will have cleared up and dried off a little bit... But until then, thanks again for reading and best of luck to you on the water.

Finally, it's time for a fishing report!!! :)

Yes, believe it or not my Dad and I actually did make it up to Erie this past week... And boy am I glad we waited as long as we did to go. Conditions were very good (almost perfect really) for float fishing--which is my favorite way to target steelhead.

Last week's rain had produced some high flows, but by the time we arrived on Tuesday things had receded. Still, there was plenty of water in the creeks for us, and the visibility was just right IMO--with a nice green color in the deeper holes.We ended up fishing a half day on Tuesday and then a full day on Wednesday. Our previous plan was to fish Thursday morning also, but when we awoke we were greeted by a couple inches of fresh snow... So we figured it best to forgo the morning fishing and concentrate on a safe drive home.

As far as the fish go, it seemed like there weren't quite as many fish as in most years past. But we did find a decent mix of fresh and battle-scarred veterans... It was obvious that a lot of the fish had already spawned and were dropping back downstream, but we did catch a good number of chromers--fresh from the lake.

At the end of our fishing, we totaled 25 steelhead between us... Dad had 12 and I had 13. The vast majority of the fish were caught on jigs (like the ones in my post from March 18th) that were tipped with minnows. My largest fish of the trip was a beautiful chrome hen that measured 30 inches, and I believe Dad's best fish was almost identical in size to mine.

Man, looking back it seems like such a long time since Dad and I had fished the tribs... In fact, throughout our trip we were constantly commenting to each other about how nice it was to be back in Erie--watching our floats drift downstream again. Of coarse, the best part of the trip is always hooking a fish and feeling that strong head-shake of a large trout on the end of your line... Spending some great father-son fishing time was pretty darn nice as well.

Until next entry, thanks for reading and best of luck to you on the water... :)