Lessons learned on the Pennsylvania fishing trip

After a 4-5 hour ride we arrived at our destination , Follly's End Campground , Elk Creek Pennsylvania. Fly fishing on Elk Creek was an absolute blast, and I managed to hook several steelhead trout as long as my arm.These beaufiful chrome fish were very powerful and the fight they put up is amazing. My fishing partner hooked and landed many throughout our 3 day trip. Being a student of fly fishing I was unable to land any of these beautiful giants, however the lessons learned were invaluable., and sooner or later I will master this process.

The first thing I discovered was I was using tackle that was to heavy for the conditions of the river. The river was low and not to murky(almost clear) so a change of leader and tippet were necessary. After hooking several big steelhead and realizing that this was no cake walk I began to see the faults with my fishing strategy and gear set up.The fishing rod I was using a new 7 weight 10' ( The first rod I've ever built) with an Orvis Battenkill 5/6 reel were not performing good enough to land these fish. With some critical thinking I seperated the system into components. The 7 weight 10' fly rod was working fantasticly, as good if not better than similar rods costing severl hundred dollors ( I have invested about $100.00 and 3 or 4 evenings of work while building my fishing rod). A good look at the reel and I realized that this reel had 5/6 weight floating fly line and is only 2.5"- 3" or bigger in diameter.This reel and line were very well suited to use on a 5 or 6 weight rod while dry fly fishing but were not designed to tackle the Elk Creek Steelhead. I had to reel in faster and could not palm the reel to slow the critter down with the reel being only 3" in diameter . The second thing I had to confront (I still have to master this) was to learn to play the fish instead of yhaooing and trying to horse the trout in like I have a big bass on 20 lb tackle, as the tippet (end of the line) was fluorocarbon 5X which is only about 4.5 lb test line, much less strong than 20 lb fluorocarbon I had to use for bass. Steelhead are very cunning, smart,wiley, and if they see the line it's game over.

The second day, after much counsel and assistance from my fishing buddies I switched to my favorite reel a Lamson LS 3.5"( 3-3/4 ") rigged with a Scientific Angler double taper fly line on my new rod. The blanks I used for my rod were made by Rainshadow and are graphite. The new set up worked much better and I managed to get several more hits but was to set the hook. The way I look at it, I will continue to work through these issues until I land a Lake Erie Steelhead and that might take several more adventures to strighten out.

The best part of this adventure was all the contact I had with people from all over the country, places like New York , Baltimore, Lansing Michigan, Ohio,Kansas, and of course Pennsylvania. We fished at several locations on Elk Creek, however the folks at Folly's End Campground Fly shop were superb and basically took us by the hand and taught us the difference between fishing the Pere Marquette River in Michigan and the much lighter fishing set up for Elk Creek. Every person I met was courteous and helpful.
The end result is that I get to fish,breath fresh air, interact with nature, and have a great hobby with no down side.