secrets

hey
been checkin out the boards for awhile and finally became a member!
i had a question about secret spots... Are there any secrets left in erie? im not lookin for anyone to tell me..im just wonderin...
I tend to fish where there isnt a lot of other people.. im happy if i catch one in a day.. to me, they are fairly secret spots just because most people like fishing a pod of 50 fish.. dont get me wrong i do too sometimes but ide rather go hike and enjoy the winter beauty than stand shoulder to shoulder.
anyway im nervous if i blurt out some of my fav spots someone else might say "HEy! thats a secret! dont spout off about that!"
Racoon is one of my fav places to fish and i havnt even made it to the train tracks yet. What a beautiful place.
has anyone ever fished turkey? looks pretty thick.
 
 

Its only a secret untill somebody else finds it. If you want to give out information to everyone then that said "secret spot" will not be so secret. Sometimes silence is best. Around this forum most will end up calling you a " spot burner ". Take that with a grain of salt and do your best to ignore it. So if you wanted Raccoon to be that place you wanted to go to and be , lets say , " secluded " , youve just told everyone here about your " secret spot" .
 
You can give general info up without naming specific areas like west side , east side , lower , upper , middle sections. 
 
BTW welcome to the madness shmoe.....

Ditches dont have secrets...

Haha!

Well i especially dont mind sharing spots because most of the spots i know are ones someone else has shown or told me about (:

But im sure most people know where they are anyway..

Its funny to talk to people that say they catch 100 in a day.. I would have to do arm conditioning for that!

A couple landed is fine as long as they arnt chubs!

Ill post some pics soon (:

The mudhole, Elk access, Legion hole, Cascade hole, log jam, Tressle hole, Folley's, Platz road, Rick's road, Sterretania, 79 hole, the wall, project holes , stop sign hole, Rod & Gun club, the chutz, waterfall hole ( Walnut & 16 mile ),  The tomato patch, Manchester hole, Buttermilk falls, sewer plants 1-2&3, Girard boro, Walnut creek, Elk creek, Conneaut creek, Racoon creek, Turkey creek, Godfrey run, Tout run, Cascade creek, 4-6-8-12-16&20 mile creeks, Crooked creek, the bay & marina bay.
 
Now no need to worry about spot burning. I just set the world on fire

Nope

On a more serious note in regards to secret spots or areas that are less crowded, I tried to do a little exploring this season. Some streams are definitely less crowded than others, but if you find yourself completely alone you are usually on private land or at a stream that has no or very few fish in it. The lake often changes the mouths of these streams, especially the smaller ones and when I was exploring this past year I went to a few of the smaller westside streams and literally there were 0 fish during the peak part of the season because the stream mouth was completely blocked with debris and sediment. Now if you fish the typical spots fairly often and like to walk a little there are spots that are less crowded than others, but it is rather unusual to fish for steelhead in Erie in complete solitude. I have done it a few times and this past year I had one day (about 3 hours of fishing) where I was the only one fishing the wall at the nut after a big snow.

Spoon,
 
I did the same thing for Lake Ontario on the SR Board a couple of years back, every trib from Niagara Falls to Henderson, and the outcry was phenonenal.  It is not like these names are not on the map! Not only that, NYSDEC posts maps of all that have public access showing the easements on their website.  As to streams where fish are not stocked, sometimes these are best for the person seeking solitude, as a certain percentage of these fish stray, so when the flow is right anything along the lake including some stepacross drainage ditrches can have fish.  They are just not much fun to catch in the small spots.
 
L13

What he said.^ Wear out some shoeleather and find the spots on your own. Don't ask to be spoon fed and then come here and b*tch it's crowded and there are no fish.If you find a $20 dollar bill tree in the woods would you post the GPS numbers?

My buddy was up this weekend. He pounded them. The Willow hole was overflowing with fish. He said he had the stream all to himself. He said that there had to have been over a hundred fish stacked up beside the Maple Tree. I wish I had gone with him.

rippinlip

^^^^ Spot Burn!! 

Sorry. Now there will be tons of folks fishing the Willow Hole tomorrow. That's ok. I can still go to the Hidden Bend and fish. I've never seen anyone fish there even though it has public access. People just don't want to walk that far. That hole has to be 8 ft deep and has all of those shale shelves that just fill up with fish. Love that place. Uh oh. I think I just spot burned again! Duh!

I agree Slayer and the main times I have had solitude while fishing for steelhead have been close to major access points or fishing for them in the bay/lake. Posting the name of a small stream that has very few fish is not going to drive a ton of people to that area and even if it does they will leave sorely disappointed and probably post a whiny report that dissuades more potential fishermen than the original post about the stream. As another thought, fishing for steelhead I have often notice that sometimes when I walk to the farthest spot away from the access I end up seeing more people than I would if I just stayed there. Case in point, I have parked at the main elk access and walked a good distance both directions and I usually see more people away from the access than right by the access.  Oh and sorry for spot burning the main elk access parking lot

track-elk access was MY SPOT!!!!  How dare thee.....

Yeah I just finished building my permanent cabin in the Elk Access parking lot because I was tired of camping in the RV. The address is Steelhead Alley #1 and the entire thing is built out of Zebra Mussel shells and driftwood.