Winter Solstice Steelhead
2021
It was 18° when I left home at 5am Tuesday morning. I picked up Kevin at the truck stop and we headed to Erie for some Winter Solstice steelhead. When we arrived at the tributary it was 34°.
It was a brisk clear sky morning and as we stepped out of the truck the cold touched my face like a nearly-frozen leather glove. I already had my Eddie Bauer fishing jacket filled with the days offerings and cigars, so all I had to do is put my waders on and grab my 7 weight fly rod. Kevin got his stuff together and we headed to the crick.
Walking along the path to the crick the frozen mud beneath our wading boots crackled like cheap kids building blocks when being stepped on. We followed the path and weaved our way through the woods in sparse daylight towards the crick. The water flowed at a decent level and as clear as a city square fountain. It was much lower than last time I was up so it would be hard to tell how spooky the steelhead would be. We saw a few holding in deeper pools as we walked the path along the crick and tried for them briefly on our way to where I wanted to make a stand and fish. There were a couple of other anglers along the way trying their luck. I stopped briefly to fish the first pool of fish I saw without a strike while Kevin continued on upstream. When I came to the conclusion the fish weren’t that excited to eat I continued upstream also. I passed Keven fishing another pool of steelhead. I continued along the path, crossed the crick a couple of times, till I got to the point I wanted to fish.
I saw a deep dark pool of water beneath a tail out riffle and a few other steelhead scattered about. Across crick, every once in a while, one would break surface water like kids playing underwater tag.
My first hookup wasn’t big by any means but it felt good and encouraging getting the first one landed so early in the morning. It was a fresh steel, that took a sucker spawn, that gave me a good frisky battle before landing it. Its sides shimmered in the morning daylight like the chrome bumper on my Dodge ram.
I lost another before Kevin showed up. He said he landed one and lost one downstream.
The second and third one I landed was keeping me from not thinking about how cold my hands and body were while I battled the fish. The third steel was a nice fat one that took one of my Triple Threat streamers. I felt a nudge when I was stripping it in and quickly jerked and angled the rod for the hook set. It took off like a swarm of bees were chasing it. It rose out of the surface water, head shaking, as if each time it got stung by a bee. The steelhead weren’t in any hurry to be landed as they fought eagerly to try and get unhooked. When they came near the shallow water they darted off from those nasty bees that returned to guard their hive.
When I wasn’t battling a steelhead it was like the cold feeling came back to my senses. I could feel my aching knuckles in my arthritic fingers. My feet were cold, as well as my shins, as the cold flowing water surrounded them like a cold compress around a swollen injury. Even when I didn’t have a cigar in my mouth the warm moisture of my breath was evident by the small misty cloud that appeared with each exhale.
Just afternoon I hooked into my lengthiest steelhead. I was drifting tandem sucker spawn when my indicator just stopped. I reared back, as if to unsnag the hooks, when the line tightened, the indicator skipped along the water briefly and popped up out of the water and then took off like a super ball after the first bounce. Out further the lengthy steelhead porpoised like a dolphin and slammed back onto the water surface like a thick fallen limb off a half dead tree spraying water in all directions. He took off up crick and porpoised once more with frantic head shakes that continued after falling back onto and under the water.
I had the butt of the 7 weight in my gut while fighting the fish. I could feel every arm muscle tensing though my cold fingers didn’t seem to have much feeling but tightly gripped the cork handle. The rod arced deep and quivered as the steelhead swam and fought intently during our engagement. Every time I got him close to the shallows he took off like he didn’t want to deal with those imaginary swarm of bees. I kept pressure on him from the side and after a good long battle I was able to get him along the shallow bank-side rocks.
Kevin and I hooked up now and then during the afternoon. Some were foul hooked that couldn’t be helped. It was most easily told by the way the fish took off and the distance as they sped upstream before our offerings came undone and whipped through the air like they got shot out of a slingshot. Sometimes the flinging offerings would end up in a hanging tree branch like one did with Kevin. Trying to get it loosened he ended up breaking the rod tip but continued on fishing the rest of the day.
When the sun finally rose above the tree line it warmed up a bit. I was able to flex my fingers a bit more and had more feeling. The water didn’t warm up any. It felt as cold as it did in the morning. The steelhead never did come to a feeding frenzy. In the afternoon I kept changing colors of sucker spawn and that usually got one to strike. Maybe not always in the mouth but close enough it may have been trying to get it out of its teeth before I yanked for a hook set.
The last steelhead I caught was a fatty. It gave me a run for my money also. I’m not sure what these fish been eating but they sure were healthy and spunky once caught.
We called it quits and start heading to the truck around 3:30pm. I couldn’t wait to get back to the truck to thaw out. I felt chilled from the outside to my insides. If Frosty the Snowman had feelings of hot and cold I figured I felt just like him! At the truck we ate a sandwich and a few snacks after putting away our gear. I had the truck warming up as we ate. On the way back I could feel the warmth return to the outside of my body and I started to feel the bunion on my right big toe start to hurt while thawing out. I lit up a stogie when we got to the interstate and headed to the truck stop to drop off Kevin.
From Barkeyville I headed east towards home. It was a long day as I pulled in the drive in darkness. I couldn’t wait to get something to eat and I had a bottle of wine I was dying to open. It was a bottle of home made wine that a friend of his friend gave him. I wasn’t sure what it was going to taste like but it was suppose to be a dry white wine. Written on the bottle was ‘Thomson Seedless’. It was in a yellowish bottle and it was corked. After letting it breath, in a wine glass, I took a sip and it was delicious!! I munched on some left overs while looking at the pictures of the steelhead I caught! After finishing off almost 3/4 of the bottle of wine my insides still weren’t warm. I turned on the electric blanket, changed into bedclothes, and as they say ‘that’s all she wrote!!
~doubletaper
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