October Steel

Yes, I know it's December and I'm finally getting around to adding this to the blog. This year, my brothers Andy, John and I met in western NY to open a can of whoop ass on some steelies. This year (like last year) we were once again screwed by drought conditions, so the only creeks that were reasonably fishable were Cattauraugus Creek and later on, we moved east to the Salmon river in Pulaski, NY. One other we did fish with a small amount of success was 18 Mile Creek in the vicinity of Hamburg, NY. No special places, just public water.

Fishing was so-so. Some days we'd have 10-15 hookups, which isn't bad, but it's certainly not great. It was enough to keep the trip from being a total flame out.

I didn't fish the beads this year. I caught enough shit for that last year, but maybe I will break them out in the spring or next fall. I fished mostly pink eggs and sucker spawn. Pink always works well for me for some reason. Much better than orange or oregon cheese, red or virtually any other color. The only color that comes close is white.

At the Catt, we tried a few spots, but the reservation was the most consistent. Nothing at all in Gowanda. We also tried the Zoar recreational gorge, but nothing doing there. Perhaps we were too early for the fish to be up that high. I've also heard it said that fish will rip right through that area, but I don't know if this is true, or if anyone's gotten any data to prove it. I'm thinking probably not. It's more likely that it's such a long walk down to there, that if you get the skunk one day, you're likely to not return, which makes it easy to assume there's no fish holding down there.

Anyway, enough with the dialogue. Here are a few photos:

A few from the Catt



























Andy at the Salmon River


































I have a few more photos on my other PC that John took. I'll try to get them up in the next few days.