Photo by Mike Gnatkowski

Unless you're still working on this winter's venison supply, there's no excuse for not scheduling a trip to your favorite Lake Ontario steelhead tributary between now and Christmas.

The tributaries that flow into Lake Erie and Lake Ontario offer some of the finest steelhead angling in the world, featuring fish that average 5 and often weigh more than 20 pounds; and right now may be the best time of the year to put one of those shimmering beauties on your hook.

Steelhead begin nosing into Great Lakes feeder streams in late September and October to feed on eggs tumbling from the redds made by spawning Pacific salmon and brown trout. As the weeks pass, more rainbows are propelled upriver by their own reproductive urges. By mid-December, early-arriving steelhead will have settled into deep pools for the winter, but each downpour and pulse of runoff signals a fresh run of chrome comets.

New York has dozens of steelhead waters, but some are definitely more productive than others as winter approaches and the angler's year draws to a close.

Working from west to east on the map, here's a rundown of several of our very best December steelhead streams.

CHAUTAUQUA CREEK
What stream has New York's highest catch rate for steelhead? If you guessed Chautauqua Creek, you must be one of the locals, for most Buffalo-area anglers who drive south in search of steelhead action end their trip at Cattaraugus Creek.

Chautauqua Creek, in fact, produces 1.2 steelhead per hour of fishing effort, according to a study of Lake Erie tributaries that was conducted in 2003-2004. The second-fastest fishing occurred at nearby Canadaway Creek, where the catch rate was 1.1 steelies per hour of trying. Cattaraugus Creek finished seventh on the list, with a catch rate of 0.4 steelies caught per hour of angler effort.

All of these catch rates are excellent, in terms of steelhead fisheries. By comparison, on the famed Salmon River, anglers catch an average of about one steelie every 20 hours!

The numbers don't tell the whole story, of course. Despite the scant attention it gets in sporting publications, Chautauqua Creek has a strong following among anglers in New York's southwest corner, and it is heavily pressured on autumn weekends. Further, it is prone to early ice-ups, and anglers who visit it on the first week of December may or may not find it fishable when they return a week or two later.

Having said that, readers in western New York would be wise to call the DEC's Region 9 office, (716) 372-0645, before making their weekend steelhead plans. If the year ends with mild temperatures and soaking rains instead of snow and ice, Chautauqua Creek will be worth fishing right through Christmas for fresh-run steelhead that average about 4 or 5 pounds.

Chautauqua flows through the village of Westfield before slipping under U.S. Route 5 and emptying into Lake Erie. The crystalline ledge pools immediately up and downstream from Route 5 are by far the most heavily fished parts of the stream because they are marked "public fishing" on both banks. However, the lower five miles of the creek are accessible to spawning fish, and the anglers who obtain permission to wet a line on private property or who check out the PFR sections between Westfield and Volusia will be glad they did so. The Region 9 office mentioned above has a map showing the location of public fishing rights on Chautauqua Creek. It can also be downloaded from the DEC Web site, www.dec.state.ny.us.

CATTARAUGUS CREEK
Cattaraugus Creek's popularity with flyfishermen is one reason why its catch rate doesn't match that of Chautauqua Creek's. Neophyte fly-rodders have a long learning curve and even the experts tend to lose a significant percentage of the steelhead they hook. Yet no excuses are necessary, for the angler who hits the Cat when fish are plentiful and in the mood to tango stands a very good chance of landing a dozen or more chrome-sided 'bows in a single day. And what's wrong with a catch rate of 0.4 steelhead per hour, anyway? That's four for every 10 hours on the water.