Hey do you blame me for asking? I appreciate your help. I only took up fishing a year and a half ago and I am pretty despite for good spots. I have the lower area of 18 mile creek pretty well scouted (i did that a couple weeks ago). There are couple places on Cattaraugus i go to,although I do not fish the res. Winter time I hit oak orchard and Burt. I go to devils hole/ art park pretty much year round.
If you have not noticed everything I mentioned is pressured .
I can find areas of the Catt that have zero pressure, you just have to be willing to hike. Hiking and exploring is really the only way to discover great spots. You’ll walk by 1/2 mile of open water and not see a thing and then it will make a bend and there will be a deep pool 6’ deep by 60’ long, holding a ton of fish. Lots of fishermen are lazy. They want to park their vehicle and walk right down to the water only a hundred feet away. That’s why areas such as Burt Dam, Oak Orchard, and Scoby Dam (Catt) are so popular. People go to where the fish stack up and they can drive right up and fish. It’s also VERY easy to walk a stretch of water and think that there are no fish (steelhead) in there, when in fact, they can hide under the smallest little cut, out of sight. Me and my girlfriend were fishing Keg Creek last year. These 3 fishermen wanted to go past us so we let them. Keep in mind that Keg Creek is only 15 feet wide in most spots. We let them walk by us and them 5 minutes later we started heading up behind them. My girl steps on a log, and kicks out a monster 12lb steelhead! Those 3 guys walked right by it and never saw it. Steelhead will typically be in sections with decent current, that ALSO offer current breaks, such as boulders, rocks, trees, or undercuts in the banks. They will sit just outside of the current and wait for food to drift on by, then they pounce. They are easy to miss. You’ll have to learn how to read the water. Cast right next to every big boulder you see, and every overhang on the sides.
I do not mind hiking. I mentioned I scouted 18 mile-Erie earlier, I basically hiked the river from the old lake shore bridge to the falls that are past he I90 bridge. I found some nice holes and sighted some fish. But did not have any luck in catching any. I have never caught a steelhead that I sight, I am pretty sure they see me too, even when I keep a low profile.
Joelster is hammering the creeks!!! Nice job man
What are you using as bait?
The only way to easily catch a steelhead when the water is clear is to approach it from behind. If they are sitting in some current which they usually are, they will be facing upstream. They have excellent vision but not directly behind them. Cast your lure way up above them and bring it down in their line of sight just off to the side of them. If the water has a slight stain to it, then it’s game on! You won’t be able to see them, and they won’t be able to see you. If it’s high and muddy, stay home lol. They will be moving and they can’t see shit unless you bounce it off of their nose.
I have been dead drifting jigs of various sizes and colors, but mostly black, whites or olive. In addition I have been dead drifting brown trout roe tied in various colored mesh.
You make a good point in regards to my position. In my drift I tend to cast 45 deg upstream and let it drift. Based on what you said 75% of the drift is such that I would either be directly across from or upstream of the fish.
Put the jigs and eggs away until the water temp gets low! Pretend you are fishing for smallmouth bass. Get some #2 , #3 blade spinners, silver blade. Get some K9 kwikfish in chrome with pink dots. I like the Blue Fox Vibrax spinners in #3 because the package comes with a treble attached and also a big single hook. I cut the treble off and attach the big single hook, that way they are legal everywhere. Spinners with treble hooks ARE NOT allowed in Lake Ontario tribs. If you get caught by the DEC you can get fined.
The package will look like this with the extra hook inside:
Kwikfish are basically a crankbait, but they have an erratic motion to them. This is the hot color that I use most often:
That picture is of a K14 which is huge. Get a K9, and cut the first treble hook off. You only run the back treble in the small creeks. If you leave the first treble on, it will snag everything on the bottom. Treble hooks are allowed on a Kwikfish because they are a floating lure, and floating lures are exempt from any hook regulations.
Here’s one of my K9’s after a days battle. Notice all of the chrome chipped off. That is from the trout hammering it with their teeth. After 4 or 5 fish hit it, it will look like someone took a shotgun to it.
Here’s a nice 7lb male with a Kwikfish in his mouth:
Thanks for the input. I have plenty of single hook spinners and kwik fish I use in the lower Niagara and bass fishing in smaller tribs. When do you think the transition from using spinners and such to dead drifting should take place? When water temp gets into the 40°s or is the method you described still effective?
Last year I was fishing earlier in the season with #2 /#3 spinners in an area less then a half a mile away from the mouth in late October and did not catch anything, while the guys fishing spawn and jigs were doing quit well. That is when i started to move away from it for steelhead. Having said that, you have proven how effective the method is. I will try it this weekend.
Once again thank for your input
Went to 18-mile today out of Erie. Saw one other car there with Ontario plates. Walked down and saw 2 guys fly fishing the usual spot that holds some skittish fish. Kept on walking, and walking. Came up to a typically good pool, and only saw one fish, no bueno. Walked to the next “good” spot and didn’t see anything. Uh-oh, I was thinking this was going to be a bust. Kept on walking and finally landed a decent 5lber out of a nice pool. No more action so kept going and going. Finally found a nice pool, tossed the kwikfish in, and 4 fish gave chase right away! Wham, got 4 out of this pool in 10 minutes including a beautiful 10lb male! Hit a few more pools and it was one right after another. Started to get redundant lol. Most were 6-8lbs. texted my friend who was working in the area. He met me on his extended lunch break and grabbed some spare gear rod/reel. He landed 4 out of 5 in an hour and a half. I landed 14 or 15 and lost 3. Was an amazing day! I shot a pretty cool video that is uploading right now. Don’t mind the shakiness, it’s hard to hold a phone, operate a rod/reel and net a fish at the same time!
This is the biggest I landed all day. About 29-30" and roughly 10lbs. Big male with great color on him:
Are you talking about Versailes Rd off South Creek? This week was the first time people drifting sacs did better than everyone using spinners/cleos. I’m curious if water temp cooled off quite a bit. Those are some nice fish. There were a lot more browns this year than last year in 18 mile. At least in my experience.
The South Creek Rd I’m referring to is off of Old Lakeshore Rd. Here is the pdf file for the DEC maps. Scroll down to Map #2 , you are thinking of the spot way closer to the mouth near the I90 overpass.
Decided to do a little physical therapy today. Went out with my girl to watch her fish and after she landed her 2nd I couldn’t sit idle any more.
Was in Florida over the weekend. Caught a bunch of fish, including 2 sharks.
Saltwater is a whole different ball game. You never know what you’re going to get.
Went 5 for 8 today. Lost 2 really nice ones about 8 or 9lbs. This guy was the biggest roughly 27" and 7lbs. Way too many people out on the water. I had to bypass so many areas that I normally hit because there were groups of people in them.
Was out every day this week. Landed roughly 22 steelhead, lost about 9. On Thursday a guy started asking me questions about how many I caught etc. Turns out he was from Channel 2 News doing an outdoor story. Literally a minute later I hooked a steelhead. He told me if the pic turns out it will be up on the website. Well it went up last night:
Ha that’s cool. I was just reading that article yesterday. I was down by Versallies Saturday. Low and clear. Wasn’t much there. Did ok at the Catt Sunday though.
In 2006 I would have started a thread called “Fall Fisting”…
Ah, the old days.
Did ok today. Landed 2 and lost 2 steelhead. Landed my first brown in a long time.
Nice! Look pretty fresh too.
Took Choda and his friend Mark out today for some steelhead. The water is super low right now and we were greeted by a new “posted” sign that forced us to turn around and miss out on some nice pools. We ended up having to work hard to find the fish and probably hiked close to 3-4 miles. Ended up landing 3 really nice fish, not losing any lures, and not losing any fish. Sucks that Mark wasn’t able to land one, but he had fun.
