Pacemaker Fishing Forum

This trip has been over a year in the making as I got snowed out last year. The plan was to head up on Wednesday evening, fish the Erie tributaries for steelhead on Thursday and Friday, stay in State College PA Friday night and do a quick shot in Central PA for trout on Saturday. Since I’ve never fished steelhead before I met up with my friend and guide Alex, who guides up there in the winter. Alex was the guide that Ernie and I had earlier this year fishing the spring creeks in Cumberland County. He’s a great guide, a super nice guy and fun to fish with.

The wind was blowing hard on Thursday so Alex and I met at 5:30 at the walk in to about a 40 minute hike into a ravine where we would be protected from the wind. We hiked through heavy muck and mud with a downhill trek to the river. We then entered the water to continue downstream. As we walked down, we spooked a bunch of steelhead resting by the bank and some of them were big! Needless to say I was excited. We got geared up and still had 10 to 15 minutes before it got light. We rigged up my 7 weight with 8 lb tippet and fished a bead and yarn egg combo.

When we got on the water, it became clear that we were fishing in a beautiful stretch of river.

 

Unfortunately, after a short time on the water, my excitement started to wane as the river was not only off color, but loaded with leaves and debris as you can see in the pictures. It was impossible to get good presentations. There was some snow earlier in the week but the land was so saturated already, that when it melted, the water level rose significantly and pulled the leaves and debris from the banks into the river. After a while we hiked out and tried several other streams but they were all blown out. We called it quits by 11:30 fishless and disappointed. What we did have was hope for Friday and pop tarts!



We watched the flows all day nervously and only felt better after 7:00 pm when it appeared the river had crested.  We had 12 hours for it to drop. In spite of a shorter walk to a different stretch of river, Alex still wanted to meet at 5:30 am again to get on a run before anyone else showed up. What a difference a day makes. It was colder Friday but with a light breeze and much clearer and clean water. Once again while hiking downstream, we moved a lot of steelhead. It was go time.



After about 15 minutes of searching I hooked my first fish and lost it within seconds when the hook popped. My 2nd hookup was on for much longer until the fish made an amazing run across the stream and broke me off. More on this later. The 3rd time was a charm, when after an insane fight, I landed this stud of a buck.

 

It was a tough morning losing a lot of fish. That’s the nature of steelhead fishing but something was odd about it. Several fish broke off with the line BELOW the knot, where it wrapped around the hook broke. This happened throughout the day and truly baffled us. Others got cut off as they got around the razor sharp shale rocks on the riverbed. It was frustrating but still fun.

I then landed my first hen or “chrome” as they are called. They are stunningly beautiful fish.



As the day went on, we started to even the score but the fish were still winning. Even with the banged up tail, the fight with this fish was awesome.



Right before lunch, we had the highlight of the day. I hooked up and hooked up big. This buck put up an epic fight going upstream, downstream, across and behind us, even spooking about 10 steelhead sitting in a hole that ended up bumping the line but fortunately not breaking us off. After a long fight we got him into the net. The pictures do not do this fish justice. It was large from belly to back and thick. This fish was every bit of 9 pounds. After a beautiful release we sat and enjoyed the moment.



After a nice lunch at a local tavern we were back on the water and picked fish through the afternoon. One of them was another hen that was the smallest I caught but also the most beautiful fish which was fresh from the lake.



All told I got 10 fish to the net and easily lost another 15 or 16 fish. While we never figured out what caused the broken line at the bend of the hook and once at the swivel (this happened at least 6 or 7 times), many managed to escape with just being powerful and smart fish. Example, I hooked 2 back to back in a run and they both ran to the exact large and sharp rock in the run. One I got back and one that cut me off.

This fishery is amazing. I can’t wait to do it again.

On Saturday I was tired and sore and didn’t have a lot of time to fish. I did manage 3 beautiful wild browns on Spring Creek.