I had some vacation time coming up so the week before I kept watching the weather patiently trying to figure out what direction to head: Elk River in WV, Elk Creek in PA or some musky on the fly. Well the weather man cooperated and gave us some awesome rain which brought the streams up way high and off colored and that meant a good run of steelhead on the Lake Erie tributaries. Ryan from Risen Fly kept me updated on the status of reports and conditions and I was getting pumped up for the trip up to Erie for some fun fishing. My buddies were headed home from a great NY fishing trip and chimed in on the water conditions on the Mile streams as well saying they looked perfect. It was leading up to be a great trip and a good start to vacation. Sunday night comes and one buddy got stuck working but then my good friend Zach "McFishin" messages me and asks if anyone is going and if I care he comes along, keep in mind McFishin just got home from NY that evening never unpacked and was ready to head north again a real fishing machine and at least the trip wasn't going to be a solo one its always good sharing the water with a good friend! After 2 hours of sleep the car is packed and I am off to Fairmont to meet up with Zach to make the trip North to steelhead country, who needs sleep when fishing is involved just open a bottle of mountain dew and your good to go!
After a few hours of interstate driving we had arrived and were thrilleed to see conditions were great and the parking area wasn't even that crowded to start out. We stepped out and was greeted with some cool air so we layered up strung up the rods tied on a couple flies and off to Elk Creek we were headed. It was a new section I had never fished before we started out on but had some great runs and looked super fishey. McFishin started off in a nice fast run while I got my rig just right and was into a fish in no time at all. Things looked like they were going to be crazy all day but after some slow fishing I was afraid I was jinxed by the $6.66 total from Sheetz. We fished our way downstream with not much action at all and by settled in on one big slick. In no time I rared back and fish on we were into them again but after three lost steelhead later the skunk was still smelling strong. We figured we would change some things up and change locations to a new access area and some good fish holding water. After speaking to several people and no one seeming to have any luck but maybe landing one if they were lucky we heard a lot of "we didn't see any fish" comments. So as we started off on this lower run we knew there had to be fish in there with these cold temps and great flow on top of these off colored water conditons it was perfect but fly after fly no fish seemed to be cooperating and we were starting to wonder.
As we rounded the bend and found yet another run I looked up and Zach was into some chrome a sight that was soon to become all to famlier! I missed several more and Zach landed a couple more. The stream was starting to empty as people weren't getting into fish. Zach wanted to get the skunk off me so he gave me some tips and set me up in a nice tailout in no time the rod was bent and I was finally landing my first steelhead of the day finally I was on the board and the fun was really starting. As Zach went up to try the head of the run he looks back and I am into yet another fish its nice when you get into fish fast and the plan comes together sometimes you just have to sit back read the water find your seams and as Zach says trust your dift, you may not see the fish but they are there you just have to find them and get the setup just right at times.
We fished a run for a good little bit and must have landed over 10 between us in that one run and lost way more than that there they are easy to hook sometimes but landing at times is a whole other thing. By the time we were done the stream looked empty but the WVAngler duo had opened up a whole can of kick butt. We landed around 15 between us and hooked up with over twice that amount so the action was good and it ended up being a great day on the stream with a good buddy. Sometimes when the action gets slow step back work on the depth of your rig, change those flies, and make sure you are fishing the right seams but mainly keep after it with some faith and dedication it will happen for sure! It took a while but I polished up a few things and the chrome was shining before the day was done.
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