Dfishinfool's From The River Report
By: Don Dfishinfool Mathews
Dfishinfool's Fly
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I will try to provide accurate and free reports this steelhead season. I do this as a service to my many friends and clients that this fishery has introduced me too. I will try my best to update it every Thurs., to help those limited to weekend fishing. Thank you to everybody who has sent me reports and feedback through E Mail. I will try to awnser all E-Mail and questions as time permitts. If anybody is looking for a guided steelhead trip or has a friend who is. I would appreciate a recomendation or a kind word. I will give your trip my all. I live to fish. Don Mathews
Link to the reports page from the home page to assure you are getting the most up to date report. Thanks
11-01-01 Started at Elk creek again this morning. Flow has slowed since tues and the water is ultraclear. Fish are holding in deeper holes. Had fair success even with the clear water. Today fish wanted the clouser patterns. The beautifull weather brought the crowds out today . After lunch headed to Conneaut creek and found it in excellent shape. Flow was good and visibility was 2'. Had the river to myself. Caught two here and lost two. Only had about a hour and a half to fish. Conneaut should be great this weekend. Don
10-30-01 Tues Fished Elk creek with my brother Brian and it was a great day to be in the outdoors. We had a deer run right up to us and stop and watch us fish. Water has again turned gin clear on the Elk and the fish are holding in the deepest water they can find. Stealth was required today and small orange sucker spawn was the hot fly. Had to go to 4# florocarbon tippet and a 9' leader to keep from line spooking fish. Many unavoidable foul hookups.We are desperatly in need of more rain again already. Drove over Conneaut and it was looking nice. Don
10-29-01 Monday What a morning !! Fished the Elk with Greg from Pittsburg. We put some miles on our boots this morning and it paid off in a big way. We found the river in beautiful shape this morning with 18” visibility and a brownish green tint. It was Greg’s first day with the flyrod and he was a terrific student. He caught and released fish after fish. Including a beautiful 31” male that will soon hang on his office wall. Congradulations Greg !! With the quickly clearing water we found that the fish didn’t want the bright colors from yesterday. They instead the preferred #12 succer spawn in Peach and White. We saw fish actively moving upriver. Elk Creek is prime right now don’t let it pass you by !! Don
10-28-01 Sun Started at Walnut Creek in the project waters. Fished today with Don from mineral Ridge. Water level has dropped to a nice flow and the water color was a nice brownish green. The river is full of fish and I saw lots of hookups. Don landed three on egg sacks right at daylight. I saw a couple of fellows using spey rods and egg sacks with great success. Crowds got too heavy so we decided to move at about 8:30. Next we headed to Elk Creek. Water color on the Elk started at a brown with 6” visibility and cleared and took a greenish tint throughout the day. There is a good number of fish in the river and they are silver and very active. Fish on, Was the call of the day! We had great success with just about everything we threw them. We used fresh spawn sacks and worms on the noodle rod’s and sucker spawn in bright orange and pinks. They killed the red kevorkians drifted below a float. I caught and released a 33 ˝” female that was loaded with eggs. I had no scale but would guess her at 15 lbs. Seems like a run of larger fish than we had been seeing is in the river. Found the fish holding in their usual holes and many in the riffles too. Fish have made it all the way up Elk to Sterratania but there still seem to be bigger numbers in the lower river. Should be a terrific week to use one of those sick days.LOL !! Don
10-27-01 Sat. Took a couple of days off due to the high water. Fridays rain kept the rivers flowing high and muddy. Anticipation is running high because I know what the rains will bring.I plan on hitting the river in the morning. As the water clears it should be great fishing. 18’ waves on Erie Friday!! WOW !!
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10-30-01 Elk Creek
Thurs 10-25-01 Started at Walnut Creek with Steve from Warren. It was Steves first day with the flyrod and we were faced with adverse conditions to say the least. We FINALLY got some decent rain. This combined with a strong NW wind had the water level at Walnut up almost a foot, and the water was mud brown. Leaves are so much a problem it's almost unfishable. Steve did have six fish on the line but the three he landed were all foul hooked and quickly released. I landed one fair hooked fish, a nice 10# silver male. He took a size #10 orange succer spawn. The muddy water and leaves forced us to reschedule for another day and call it quits early.
This was the rain we have all been waiting for. Large numbers of fish were visibly charging up the river at Walnut. This rain will let the fish stacked up at the mouths of our streams make it upriver. I am predicting a great weekend IF we don't get any more substansial rain. Leaves are going to be a major problem though. Look for Walnut to clear first and Elk to follow a day later. I look for Walnut to be prime water color by Sat. but remember leaves will be a problem. Fish should start to show up in good numbers at their usual upstream haunts at the Elk this weekend. The conrail tubes would be a good place to start . Try bigger flys in bright colored egg patterns untill the water clears. Lake fishing at Trout Run and godfrey is out of the question untill the 6-8' waves lay down a little. C Ya On THE RIVER !!! Don
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