Big Steelhead & celebrating the US Thanksgiving by catching lot’s of fish & shooting a TV show.
Posted on November 26th, 2010[nggallery id=370]All photos were taken by Joe Shugan, our audio technician.
What better way to celebrate the US Thanksgiving than to go fishing!! And that’s exactly what the Canadian Sportfishing Team did along with about 150 US anglers on Eighteen Mile Creek in Newfane, NY. I had scouted potential shore fishing locations in Upper NY, Mon., Tues., & Wed.. After having travelled to the Upper NY Lake Erie tributaries (which were high & dirty from 3-days of intensive rain), I also checked out the Upper NY Lake Ontario tributaries that flow between Niagara Falls, NY and Rochester, NY. My decision was made to shoot a TV show, without waders and with the new Rapala R-Type light-line 11′ Steelhead baitcasting rod matched with a Shift baitcaster and loaded with Sufix Siege 8 lb. test orange/tangarine main line & Sufix 6 lb. test fluorocarbon leader. I knew there would be lot’s of US anglers out and I wanted to capture the crowds, what great sportsman they are, and how clean they keep their tributaries, and it all came together. I started off by giving viewers tips on drifting freshly tied brown trout spawn sacks and demonstrating the “line-feathering” technique that center-pin anglers achieve by letting the current take their float presentation with current maintaining the most natural drift. This is easily achieved with the awesome Rapala light-line R-Type/Shift reel steelhead baitcasting outfit. I also used the Lucky Strike Live Release Basket Net to safely land and release all of the fish caught on the show! Within the first 1 hr. I was blessed to land two trophy female steelhead. Both fought hard and one took be down-stream about 50 yds., before it let itself be netted. American anglers are very curtious and anyone seeing you fighting a fish and walking it downstream stops fishing to let you fight and land your fish….now that’s sportsmanship! They even offer to land the fish for you!! From that point it rained steadily and we agreed it was timee for lunch. We took a abreak and than headed down-stream where I switched to a 1/32 oz. white/jig fly and landed 3-additional trophy rainbows. By that time the crowd of 150-anglers had gone down to 6-anglers. I guess everyone was home enjoying a hot turkey dinner! Besides the great fishing in Upper NY state, I am always impressed by how our American neighbours maintain healthy steelhead and brown trout stockings, how they have parking lots for anglers, portable toilets, garbage cans (recyclable and garbage) in the parking lot’s and all along the tributaries. They are so respectful of their outdoors that it’s hard to find a piece of garbage along the stream. If you love tributary fishing, make sure to see this episode when it airs in the 2011-2012 series. You will love the action and the great tips! Now it’s time for me to test a new Rapala Andros steelhead model reel on the Niagara River…have a great weekend!
