Fishing Steelhead Alley

I grew up trout fishing the small streams of western Pennsylvania, but didn’t start steelhead fishing until my last year or two of high school.  I wasn’t very successful at steelhead fishing, so it wasn’t a top priority for me, at the time, to drive an hour and a half to Erie to fish the fall steelhead run.  I was focused on archery hunting and I was perfectly okay with that.  When I graduated from high school and moved to Erie, PA for college at Penn State Behrend I found myself drawn to the fall steelhead a lot more than archery hunting.  It was much easier to drive to the stream for a few hours of fishing than it was to drive home and try to get in the woods.  The deer that I didn’t get while in college I sufficiently made up for  with all of the steelhead I managed to catch.

The Seasons Advancing

Article Originally Featured at www.harvestingnature.com

Here in western Pennsylvania spring is giving way to summer, and as the temperatures start to creep up, I find myself switching gears. The trout streams have become low and slow and I’ve had to put away my chest waders and noodle rod, but that doesn’t mean I’m done fishing.

As the season changes, my quarry and methods of chase have changed as well. Instead of drifting a salmon egg under a float through the ripples of a stream, I grab the Someday Isle jig from my tackle bag, head to the lake and hop in a boat. There is a small lake in my area that I have fished many times from shore, with very limited success. I had all but given up on this particular fishery, until my friend invited me for some night fishing. This opened up a whole new way of fishing for me. We now make it a point to go out several times throughout the summer, and have enjoyed success on many of these trips.