From: 02/11/2017
To: 02/11/2017
Type of Water: Freshwater
Species: Steelhead
We had three clients fish with us on Saturday, February 11,2017. All three were new to fly fishing and inexperienced Steelhead fishermen as well. With that said after a brief tutorial on some productive water that we scouted the day before, they were hooking up with some hungry Lake Erie Steelhead. The water was a nice green color with near perfect flows. The hot flies were orange "Nuke Eggs". In a few hours time, we managed to land several fish while also hooking and losing an equal amount. The bite slowed so we decided to make a move to find more active fish.
Early afternoon found us in some awesome water that had produced big numbers of fish for us in the early season. This part of the stream holds deeper runs, pockets, and holes so we hoped to find some actively feeding fish. With View more...We had three clients fish with us on Saturday, February 11,2017. All three were new to fly fishing and inexperienced Steelhead fishermen as well. With that said after a brief tutorial on some productive water that we scouted the day before, they were hooking up with some hungry Lake Erie Steelhead. The water was a nice green color with near perfect flows. The hot flies were orange "Nuke Eggs". In a few hours time, we managed to land several fish while also hooking and losing an equal amount. The bite slowed so we decided to make a move to find more active fish.
Early afternoon found us in some awesome water that had produced big numbers of fish for us in the early season. This part of the stream holds deeper runs, pockets, and holes so we hoped to find some actively feeding fish. With our best efforts we couldn't find a fish so another move was made.
It was getting late in the day and we headed upstream to some holding water that always has a few fish wintering in it. It wasn't long before the sweet sound of a singing fly reel drag could be heard. Client 1 landed a nice buck that had been in the stream for a while on an orange "Nuke Egg". Minutes later client number 2 was hooked up but lost his fish. We lost one more fish before two other "fishermen" decided to low hole us. We regrouped at the truck and with approximately 20 minutes of light left, we gave the clients the option of moving to one last spot or calling it a day. They decided to head back to the motel.
With the clients following in their vehicle, we decided to make an executive decision and fish one more spot close to the road to see if we could get them on a few more fish before dark. The evening before we caught three fish in the last few minutes of light from this spot so we were confident we could make it happen for them. We had one client drifting our popular orange "Nuke Egg" and one throwing an olive articulated "Sculpin". The "Nuke Egg" was the first to hook up and the fish quickly threw the hook. The client using the "Sculpin" was stripping through a long slow run when is streamer was violently slammed. After a 5 minute "tug of war" the beautiful Lake Erie Steelhead was landed. The fisherman using the orange "Nuke Egg"
had two more fish hooked but none landed.
All in all it was a very productive day on the Lake Erie Tribs. Two of the three clients caught almost double digit numbers of fish with many more hook ups. The third fisherman caught one and lost a bunch more and we will work at doing a better job of helping him land more fish when he returns next month.
