Hear Ye, Hear Ye.

Though I doubt this should be necessary, but might any of you Salmon River fanatics need a little something to galvanize your love and dedication for chasing Steele in upstate New York, let me present you with this:

http://www.thisriveriswild.com/

All I can say is, Damn; I've never had a stronger desire to forsake the wild, native Steele of the fabled PacNW and head back to good ole Pulaski to chase chrome. Better up the ante of your aspirations, because those dream can come true east of the Mississippi...

Just wanted to share that with you all.

I'll just put these here

I took a bit of a road trip for steele last month.
1,900 miles to western NY from my door.
Last year I timed it perfectly and this year I was a bit off, blown off color water was waiting for me but I had to drive.

                                                              In the hills of VT.

                                                   A few chubs casting in Lake Champlain.

                                                                  Iphone said this was the quickest route

I was combining a trip to visit my friend Ben, who I met hiking the AT in 2003. He lives near the Canadian border in NY so a pit stop there to catch up was a nice treat.

Then off to a native American reservation for what I hoped would be stellar solo steelhead fishing.

                    She's blown, hard to tell but blown. $45 dollars for a three day means that I fished it anyway.

Day two meant finding another piece of water near by that held fish and was less chocolate like.
I spotted this sticker in the parking lot and was feeling positive.

Western NY has some beautiful water. I stuck a little guy just above that rock on the swing, on an ugly tube.

Skunk was off and I was feeling great. I only met two sports all day, both native NY'ers and both were exceptionally nice, offering me first pass through runs or a snack or smokes. I was refreshed to have met these two. I started feeling like I should in turn be a proper gentleman and fish a classy fly.

 

A guy I met on the internet gave me that fly and I lost it on my fourth cast. I went fishless that afternoon because of that fact, I am sure of it.

Day three had me meeting up with my friend Mike D and his father. We headed back to famous water and swung hand tied flies. The best part of fishing with the Redspot Fly crew is that you get to steal a few bits of the fly box. I have some goodies for you boys.

I had a fish to the beach and lost it, my friends landed hogs above me ( like fishing with Wilkie, Keith, Clark and JLR ) I smiled and took photos.

Day four had us driving north of Buffalo to a smaller creek with rumors of large browns. I sucked up my pride and left the spey rod in the rental car. I was working a bead today. "Redemption Sunday"
We need to go back and spend some time on this crick boys, I encountered a line of jovial snaggers at the damn and as many moldy salmon as you could count. The bead works.

A great road trip all around. I send my best to the boys headed out this weekend, I am sorry I can't be there shoulder to shoulder with you.
Live Life
Jasper

Wheel O' Camp

Behold, the Wheel O' Camp. Born and built on a beer fueled brainstorming session at Sarah's camp in the Adirondacks. I lobbied hard for the extra large fishing slice and as luck would have it, fishing is what I spun...I was gonna fish no matter what but it was nice to see the wheel worked.

This river in Northern New York is quickly becoming one of my favorite spots in the East. Even in mid summer, you can always stick a few brookies, rainbows, or browns, and the chance for a monster brown in some unsuspecting pocket water is always there. The river is accessible by road for most of the good stretches but it's also just far enough off the road to get views like this. Here, Sarah experiences the agony and joy of casting long distances over calm water to fish sipping trico spinners. Not size 18's, not size 22's, but 20's.

Rabbits

I made an impromptu decision to head up to the SR last week. Nathalia was out of town for work and I thought it would be relatively quiet around the office so figured this was as good a chance as any to cash in on some steele. Plan was to leave Wednesday after work and fish Thursday and a half day Friday. Unfortunately, I ended up with a work dinner Wednesday night that would significantly delay my departure. My options were to leave early Thursday morning and not get to the SR at first light or sack up and pull an overnight drive to NY and fish on no sleep. Being a veteran of the sleepless nights when canyon fishing I decided to move forward with the latter. At roughly 11PM Wednesday night, I left my dinner in Burlington Mass for rivers filled with seagoing trout.

Well, about a half hour into the drive I decided it would be a prudent time to confirm the SR flow. To my great dismay the river had blown up to 1100cfs at Pineville. While not unfishable, this flow was much higher than what I was expecting and not ideal for my plan to wade around and cover a lot of territory in the lower river. What to do, what to do... After about 20 minutes of deliberation, I decided to take a gamble and fish one of the creeks nearby the SR. Friends Kyle and Miles had recently fished a creek about 40 minutes from the SR (to remain nameless) and reported that it held a good mix of browns and steelhead. The men had given me some good intel on access points and fishy water. Why not, I figured. It wouldn't hurt to get away from the crowds anyhow. With that decision made, I rolled west into the dark night. 

I got to the Oswego area an hour before light and found a MacDonalds to provide healthy morning sustenance. After the long drive I was exhausted, excited, and very much up to speed on the status of current events from listening to about 2 hours of CNN on Sirius. I waited until grey light to head down to the river since I didn't exactly know where I was going or which spots would hold fish. I had brought my six weight, which I rigged up with a small shallow water bead presentation, and my 8 weight, which would be rigged for deeper water presentations should I encounter any likely looking spots. 

As the sun cape up I found myself looking at very small water, narrower and shallower than the Swift river in many spots. I worked my way up river scanning the river for likely looking holding spots and firing a few casts with the bead where I thought there might be potential. I came upon a small riffle that dumped into a pool that looked to be a couple feet deep. I fired the bead into the riffle and just as my rig entered the pool the indicator when down and I was tight to my first small water fish.

 While it wasn't a slob by any standards I found myself a short while later staring at a 5lb rainbow. Was it a steelhead or a native trout? I'm still not certain. I released the fish and took another cast and wouldn't you know it I got another one, this one a hair smaller than the first but darker in color. Three casts after that I found a third trout in this little pool. This fish was a hair larger at maybe 6 pounds with a nice big stomach on it. My guess was that these were small steele. After a dozen of so more casts I pushed on finding the river slower and a little bit deeper. I came upon a slow shallow tail out and noticed a couple large v wakes. Did I spook those fish? Maybe. I could get any takes on my bead, although the water was so slow the presentation really didn't look right. I continued to fish up stream with no action. Hours passed and I worried my early morning flurry would be the last action I would see. Finally I found myself in a spot with a little current. After a handful of cast through this shallow run I watched a brown trout move out of the current and take my bead only a few feet from my rod tip. A short battle later and I had a four pound brown up on the gravel bar. This silver looking fish was clearly of the lake run variety. After a quick release I pounded the spot for another hour before giving up on this stretch of water.

I hiked back up to the car to try another access point further upstream. While having landed a handful during the morning, the action still felt slow. I had managed only 4 bites and was lucky to have landed all four fish. It was windy and cold and I was a tired man after pulling the all nighter. I hoped that the move might be a productive one. I parked by a bridge maybe a mile up river and hiked by some shallow looking water to find a nice deep pool. It looked like the prefect steelhead spot and I decided to pound it out here and hope for an evening bite. An hour passed with no action. I met a couple other fisherman in this section of river and neither angler had touched a fish. One claimed it might be the weather that was shutting off the bite, with the cold front coming through. I soldiered on fishing this deep pool, adjusting my indicator depth and about a half hour before dark I picked up another steelhead. This one fought better that the first 3 despite being no bigger. I was able to pull it up on the bank and release it. A short time later I retired for the evening.

On my way to the hotel I exchanged texts with both Miles and Kyle. I told them the day was slow despite having landed a handful, and that the bites were few and far between. The men suggested stripping a streamer, something with a nice zonker strip to give it action. Rabbit fur huh? It flew in the face of all the lake run trout fishing I had done in this area. But nonetheless it was worth a shot. The bead bite had been ok but not good. I bought a 6 pack of Labatt Blues and passed out in my hotel room around 7PM wondering deliriously if the Mayan Apocalypse would occur while I slept.

I woke up at a leisurely 6AM feeling much more refreshed than the day before. No apocalypse, just trout to be caught. I returned to the river near the first spot I fished the day before, planning to try out some streamers in the area where I saw the v wakes the day prior. My fly selection for this endeavor would be limitted. I had a bunch of weighted buggers but my unweighted rabbit fur streamer supply was only a couple of flies.  I began casting across to the far side of the river with my 8 weight. A dozen casts but nothing to show for it. Then, all of a sudden, it turned on. As I stripped my fly across the surface a large v wake appeared behind it, following my fly back to my feet before turning away. The next cast, nothing. Then another cast and another follow. Then a short strike that I missed as a large fish blew out of the water attempting to eat the rabbit. More follows. More misses. Then finally a big take. My tippet parted as I set the hook. Fuck.

Down to my last rabbit fur fly, a black zonker strip about 4 inches long. I went up to 8 pound tippet figuring I couldn't lose this fly. Would the fish take on 8 as opposed to 4? Yes they would. The fish wanted it. Finally I came tight on a fish and stayed tight on it. A brown colored rabbit eating beast.

Over the next hour and a half I would bring 4 browns in the 5 lb class to the bank on the rabbit fur. No slobs, but all healthy fish, and all on epic surface strikes worthy of video that I did not have. For the 4 that I landed, there were twice as many short strikes and twice as many follows as misses. The action was hot, even if the catching was average.

Then it slowed down. I fished for 45 minutes without a follow. It seemed like the hole needed a rest. I pushed down stream about 80 yards finding a similar looking hole on the far bank. First cast in with my now beaten up rabbit and I was tight again. This time a small steele. Steele eating rabbits? Who would have thought...

In summary, this next hole was on fire. I pulled five browns out of this hole including the one I was looking for. He came up like an alligator inhaling my fly down to the back of his throat and battling me all over the hole. He would tape out at 28.5 inches, my guess is somewhere between 8 and 9 lbs. Long, but skinny and mean. The surface strike was savage.

 

The rain that had been pounding me all morning was turning to sleet and I knew my time on the river was coming to an end. I decided to make one last cast before heading out. I placed my beaten up piece of rabbit on the far bank and  two strips later a fat fish exploded out of the water in a monstrous take. When I saw the fish breach it left no doubt that I was dealing with steele. A fat 7 lb fish with decent chrome coloration.

With 11 fish landed for the morning including my personal best brown I headed back to my car. I left New York fully satisfied, with a little more respect for the rabbit...

more metal encounters

I took a trip up to the SR with Alex and Bailey over the weekend. The flow was up the prior weekend and the bite had been good so our expectations were high as we waited for our selected steelheading dates. Unfortunately, the flow dropped out on us big time right before the weekend, going from 1500 to 500 in a 2 day period. This had me a little alarmed and I warned the guys not to expect too much in the way of action given the signficant flow change right before our trip.

This would be the second SR mission for Alex and Bailey. They joined Clark and me for the last day of our 6-Day Steele Marathon in November and after getting into some fish promptly caught Steele fever. They returned home from the SR, made the investment in their own fly gear, and scheduled another trip west. I was hoping that they would get to break in their new set ups, and in fact they would have that opportunity. Alex and Bailey are both excellent fisherman and I have had the pleasure of tuna fishing with them on several occassions. In addition to being great on the angle, these guys are stellar chefs who arrived at Mahoney's with a full grill. Delmonico Steaks after a day a steeling anyone? Uh, hell yes!

Day 1 brought a flow of 500 and an epic blizzard. Tough conditions to fish in. We went to a spot in the lower fly that I thought might fish well at the 500 cfs flow. We got lucky and it didn't take long before the rods started bending, and so long as the snow was flying the bite didn't stop. All small eggs, fished along the bottom or drifted under indicators. It didn't seem to matter color or method, the fishing was on fire. It was white out conditions, and it was insane!

Sometimes you get lucky and you just have one of those days that when you look back at it, you can hardly believe what went down. That was Saturday. By the end of the day, somewhere around 35 fish had been landed between the three of us, with north of 80 hooked. We were doubled up 5 times leading to my first ever double steele net job. Alex and Bailey had me running around with the net all day. As Robbins put it, the fishing was "fucked", and we were loving it.

Day 2 had us fishing 335 cfs and under sunny skies and the fishing wasn't anything like the day before. There was an early morning bite and then it slowed down to a slow pick. I focused on fishing the fast pocket water above the run and was rewarded with a few fish while Alex and Bailey stuck to the same run and pounded out several more. Total for Sunday wasn't all that bad, with 9 landed and maybe 25 hooked, but it felt like a crawl compared to Sat.

OO Steele and Albanian Steele drive west tonight. May they crush steele with impunity.

-Doctor Steelegood

shhh...steele...

In the beginning, I had a vision of choreographing a steeleheading video of all steeleding videos. Keith and I were headed to the SR in upstate NY for 6 days. It was not going to be a question of if we would catch fish, it would be how many and how big. But in the end, we all know that those previous two points are not measures of victory/success or any type of indication of manhood. It is simply about being on the river, again, in the pursuit of steele. That being said, catching big fish and having numerous hookup days is pretty sweet. None can argue that. Over the 6 days we would be joined by other steeleheaders in passing, most only staying for a couple days. There were 6 of them who visited in such fashion. We averaged 4 guys a day on the river and managed approximately 130 hookups and 27 fish over 6 days of steele, a trip that certainly took its toll on those cursed to live out the full duration. In the end, I was left longing for nothing but sleep and alcholess beverages and, oh yeah, a pile of pictures. Enjoy.

Fresh coho (above)