Steelhead are more than a trout. Any angler that has hooked and landed a steelhead will attest to their beauty and energetic angling characteristics. I was fortunate to spend a few hours fishing for steelhead on Cattaraugus Creek following the morning after I attended a memorial service for my uncle at my hometown in western New York State. It was a brief, solo trip in late October with time well spent with family and distant relatives. The fading fall colors under a bright blue sky provided a colorful backdrop to my travels.
Cattaraugus Creek is a popular location for steelhead anglers as well as the prized fish that have begun their fall run from Lake Erie to their native waters. Whenever fall water conditions on any steelhead stream are prime, especially on a weekend morning, you can expect company. My plan was to fish a run in the early morning before driving back to Maryland to attend the Potomac Valley Fly Fisher’s annual banquet that evening.
Typically, the best steelhead fishing happens in late November, although some fish begin to school in Lake Erie off the creek mouths about mid-September. The fish will enter the creeks any time thereafter, if the flow of the creeks is adequate. The number of fish in the creek, particularly in the fall, is heavily dependent on the amount of rain the region receives. The Catt had received a push of water the week prior but now the river was low. I was hoping the fish would be here today.
Early arrival
Before first light early that morning, I waded carefully across the river with bright stars overhead in the cloudless, dark sky. I was wise to rise early and to take position on the run before other anglers intending to fish the same location arrived and claimed the run.
Watching the stars fade in the sky as the sun rises was the reward for my early arrival. A heavy frost covered the fallen leaves that crunched loudly as I walked along the river’s edge. I was in place thirty minutes before daylight just to be sure. Fifteen minutes later, I saw a vehicle drive across the bridge upstream and pause as he surveyed the river below. No doubt my headlamp was visible in the darkness.
Around 7:15 a.m. it was light enough to begin fishing. I began working the fast, shallow water at the top of the run. As I stood in the middle of the river, casting toward the opposite shore, I took note of a lone angler who walked past me to fish the area well below but in sight of my location. I cast my streamer, a white wooly-bugger, across the current, quickly mended my line upstream to allow the fly to sink and then stripped the fly in short strokes as it swept downstream through the run.
I continued working my streamer in a similar fashion as I slowly moved downstream toward the deeper and slower section of the run. I wasn’t sure where the fish would be holding, so fishing a streamer in this way would allow me to methodically cover the run. The chilly, early morning temperature in the upper 30s had ice forming in the guides of my fly rod. By dipping my guides into the water that according to my thermometer was 42 degrees, the ice would temporarily relent from clogging my guides.
I worked to the tail of the run without a hit. The warmth of the rising sun was welcome relief to my numb fingertips. Looking downstream, I could see the angler below attempting to net a fish he was fighting on his spinning rod. He appeared to be drifting bait, maybe an egg sack or a night crawler under a float, a very effective technique for steelhead. I watched as he eventually netted a large steelie.
Fish on!
Inspired by his success, I returned to the top of the run and switched flies to a black egg-sucking wooly-bugger streamer. It was now a little more than an hour after I began fishing when a steelie grabbed my fly. I was fortunate to bring to hand a beautiful chrome buck.
I slid the fish into the shallow water and laid my fly rod on a rock to capture a quick photo before releasing my prize. A light splash of crimson was evident on the side of the gill plate, as the spawning season progresses, the brightness will give way to deeper and vivid colors on the male steelhead, not unlike the colorful transformation of a fall leaf.
My morning was already a success when I hooked a second fish in the run. It was a slightly larger hen steelie. The bright silver color indicated that this was a fresh run fish that entered the river recently. Besides color differences, female steelhead can be recognized by their rounded mouth. Males generally exhibit a hooked lower jaw. Both were strong, hard-fighting fish.
Catch and release is an important concern for most steelhead anglers. Both fish landed that day were quickly returned to the river. I fished only a few hours, as I had to make the long drive back to Maryland. It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day on the Catt, and I hated to leave. I hope to return in November when my schedule and the water conditions are agreeable.
Trout or salmon?
The life cycle of a steelhead is similar to Pacific salmon. Just like Pacific salmon, steelhead return to the rivers where they were born to spawn. Unlike salmon, however, they don’t necessarily die after that happens. Steelhead from Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes are considered lake-run rainbow trout. The eggs are derived from ocean-run steelhead from Washington State. The fish are stocked as fingerlings in tributary streams and after a year or two in the creeks and rivers, the steelhead swim out into the lake where most of their growth occurs. Most Lake Erie steelies usually weigh 3 to 6 pounds and are generally 18 to 26 inches in length, while 30-inch fish weighing 10 pounds or more are not uncommon.
