Made my 5th annual trip to western NY to fish the Lake Erie streams.
Oh, oh, what is going on in Lake Erie????? While we did indeed catch
some Steelhead, the numbers are obviously down. Yes the water was low
and the weather was unseasonably warm, but talking to a lot of the
local guys resulted in the same complaint: Not as many fish this year.

I spoke at length with a local flyfishing guide, and he is very
concerned. I asked if he had a theory as to what the problem is, and
he thinks there may be "oxygen dead zones" out in the lake.

Any comments????




On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:06:20 GMT, (GreyFox)
wrote:

Once again we made our annual trek across the US from the Great
Northwest to fish the frigid rivers and creeks feeding Lake Erie and
Lake Ontario. And, once again my buds in the PNW wonder why I travel,
"all the way back there when you have Steelhead right in your
backyard!"

Sure we have Steelhead out here in Washington and Oregon, and sure,
they are generally larger than the Great Lakes fish. However, I don't
recall the last time I hooked and landed 12 Steelhead in one day on a
Northwest river.

Fishing was not as good this year, and this was primarily due to the
Lake effect snow and C-O-L-D air and water temperatures.

In the past years we have primarily fished the Lake Erie streams, but
this year we started out on some of the Lake Ontario creeks. We fished
the famous Oak Orchard, and also 18 mile creek. The Browns were pretty
much non-existent due to the falling barometer. Steelhead fishing was
also pretty slow, and some of the Natives complained that this year
has been the pits. Moving down to fish the Lake Erie streams we found
the fish a bit more cooperative. We concentrated on some of the
smaller streams, such as Silver Creek. While we had to work for fish,
and really bundle up because of the cold, we still ended the trip with
double digit catches.