A PUBLICATION OF THE PA STEELHEAD ASSOCIATION February 2017 Letter from our President According to the Farmer’s Almanac, this is/was to be a miserably cold and snowy winter season: so much for predictions. As we enter into February 2017, the weather has been pretty much tolerable, and on many days, sunny and pleasant, but it has not led to “Great Steelhead Fishing”. Streams have been open and fishable although due to rains and snow melt, streams have been high and not always ideal conditions. Still no “runs” of Steelhead to speak of. If you catch the right day, right weather, and are will- A Not For Profit Corporation ing to spend the time, there are fish to be had, but it is a long and arduous day to catch, even just hook up, a couple of “Chromers”. Everyone has his or her own idea of why PO Box 8892 Erie, PA 16505 the Steelhead fishing is way off this season and each has speculated on a solution to www.PASteelhead.com improve the fishery. Perhaps the PFC is right in that our expectations are too great [email protected] compared to the fact that fewer fish are returning, even though the stocking numbers Meetings have remained the same over the years. That does not lessen the fact that we sit in The PA Steelhead Association holds meet- one of the best great lakes fisheries for Steelhead and other species. It does mean that ings most months at 7:30 pm the second Wednesday of the month at the American you have to work a bit more for the Steelhead. The question we have to ask ourselves Legion Post 773. The Legion is located at is: Is it worth it? You bet your “bippie”! When you hook up with a Chromer, you auto- 4109 West 12th Street (State Route 5), just matically forget the effort you had to put forth, and just savor the moment. The real east of the Erie Airport. Steelheader, whether fishing bait, flies, or steel, will definitely have a smile from ear to We meet in the banquet room to the left ear, and will forget all the time and hard work that went into this moment of excite- when you walk in. We encourage members ment. (continued at the bottom of Page 2, column 2) and the public alike to attend and share their views and opinions. Meetings focus on items pertaining to the mission of the club, fundraising events, and local public and political issues affection our fisheries. The PFBC is often represented at our meetings for reports and questions. To all of our new members, welcome! We hope to see you at a meeting. Membership year ending December 31, 2017 Please join us for our next meeting on February 8th, at 7:30 pm . Stress is caused by not fishing enough! The views expressed by the authors of articles contained in this newsletter are not necessarily the view of the PA. Steelhead Association. 1 From The Wall PSA Board of Directors and Officers Here we are at the end of beginning of February and so far we still have open waters for steelhead fishing. The good news is that the fishing for this time of the year is great. We have a substantial winter run of mature steelhead entering and in all of the streams. Some of the fish appear to be Manis- tee strain steelhead judging by their streamline bodies and extremely wide tails. The Pa mature steelheads vary from be- ing in ripe spawning condition to very bright new arrivals. Name Office In the lower portions of the larger tributaries there is a sub- stantial number of immature steelhead ranging in size from 18 Roger Latimer President inches to 8 pounds. These fish are not spawning and should be handled carefully and released as they represent this coming Dan Pastore Vice President year’s steelhead run. This is the first time in over 3 years that I have seen the immature fish in these numbers and it bodes well for this next season. Chris Fatica Treasurer There are also good numbers of brown trout in the lower stream pools. Their size is very similar to the immature Daniel Beck Secretary chromers and like the Chromers will tend to stay in the lower pools of the larger streams. These browns are very silvery and Board Members do not look like spawning browns. As always please handle all fish that you return carefully. J.T. Davis Marty Grzasko Finally please respect all properties that you are a guest on and Herb Knightlinger Ron Miller follow all signs regarding parking and entry. Please do not litter Frank Sicicchitano Mark Signorino and if possible remove litter left by thoughtless anglers. Thanks and Tight Lines! Harold (Skip) Simmons Karl Weixlmann Marty and Rich Sam Zacour (Letter from the President - cont. from page 1) New Erie County WCO’s Contact Info: Hopefully between the PFC, 3CU, SONS, and other sportsmen’s organizations, we can keep the Steelhead fishery from declining. SGT Brook R. Tolbert, of the PA If we can at least maintain the current balance of available Fish & Boat Commission asked if Steelhead, most fishermen will be happy. we could put out the contact In this Tight Line newsletter, there should be a link (ed. Note: info for our new area officers: page 5) to a management plan that New York has put into place. Tyler Soety The plan is for managing Lake Erie Steelhead in the tribs feeding Eastern Erie 814-722-8643 into Lake Erie. It seems a rather aggressive plan but at least it is Matt Visosky a plan. Perhaps there is something in this plan that our PFC can Central Erie 814-573-3638 learn from or adopt so that, in the long run, the number of re- Dan Nietupski turning Steelhead will increase. If the PFC, NY Bureau of Fisher- ies, and Ohio Fisheries could form a cooperative organization, Wester Erie 814-722-9430 and through their combined efforts, improve the Steelhead Fish- ery, that would benefit everyone. A bad day of fishing is better By the way, if you have not been watching ERIE EXTREME on NBC, channel 12 Erie at 7PM on Saturdays, you are missing one than a good day of great show. This show highlights the fishing opportunities in and around the Erie area and is hosted by Erie’s own Dave LeFe- work. ~Author Unknown bre. On Saturday Jan 14th he fished with our own Karl Weixl- mann. It was a great show of which we should all be proud. 2 Rog Reflections: Why We Should Limit False Cast I was recently fishing at a nice hole on my favorite stream that was loaded with fish. But even though there were only a few of us fishing it the fish seem jittery and weren’t cooperating. A young man next to me seemed to enjoy showing off his casting ability with multiple false casts on each and every cast. Reality was that you could easily reach the fish with a simple roll cast or just a quick flip of the rod upstream. Now his cast was pretty and I am sure that everyone who watched the movie “A River Runs Through It” wants his casting to look like in the movies. However, I noticed that each time he false cast the fish were darting and moving about. The movement had them so spooked that they were never going to bite! I usually hate to leave fish to find fish, but since I was frustrated by this gentlemen that was more in love with casting than actually catching fish I moved on. Afterwards I decided to read up on the false cast; what were the benefits and the negatives of false casting. Espe- cially excessive and unnecessary false cast. Below I will summarize what the articles I read concluded and at the end I will list some links to those articles. I am going to define false casting as making a series of cast without letting the line hit the water. Well, why would anyone do that since you can’t catch a fish without your fly being in the water? Turns out there are some good reasons: first, it enables you to change the direction of your forward catch when you want to fish a slightly differ- ent part of the water. While false casting you can measure the length of the cast you need. It also allows you to work out your line a little at a time to achieve greater distances. One of the most common uses of a false cast is to dry out your saturated dry fly so it will float longer. Okay, so what are the negatives of false casting? The aforementioned spooking of fish is the first and foremost in my mind, especially in our area with fairly narrow streams that can be covered easily without them. The line can cast a shadow on the water or cause a “line flash”, a reflection of light. But there are a number of other reasons to limit your false casting. Even when you do need extra distance there is never a need for more than three or four false cast unless you are looking for more ways to tangle your line and hit yourself with the fly hook. The more you cast the more opportunity you give your line to tangle. After all when out on the water all day it is pretty easy to lose focus and let your technique get sloppy.