No more "fish stories," please! The New York Department of Environmental Conservation now knows just how many steelhead New York anglers catch, give or take a couple of thousand, and where they catch them.

For several years, the state agency has had solid data about the silver bullet catch in Lake Erie tributaries, and recently compiled some reliable numbers for Lake Ontario feeder creeks. Between Labor Day weekend in 2005 and the end of April 2006, DEC technicians interviewed thousands of anglers along 28 streams, from Twelvemile Creek in western Niagara County to the Black River in Jefferson County.

State analysts estimated that during the eight-month period, anglers made over 226,000 trips and spent just over 1 million hours pursuing trout and salmon in Ontario tributaries.

They caught an estimated 86,913 steelhead, about 3,000 fewer than during a similar study conducted in 1984 -- and about 45,000 fewer than Lake Erie tributaries produced in a 2004-05 creel census.

New Yorkers catch more steelhead in Lake Erie feeders than in Lake Ontario spawning streams. State biologists have two explanations. First, stocked Ontario 'bows suffer heavy predation from chinook salmon, which are virtually absent from Lake Erie. Second, experts believe the spawning runs in our part of Erie's "Steelhead Alley" include many fish planted by neighboring Pennsylvania.

Any way you look at it, we have a total annual catch of better than 200,000 steelhead in New York's Great Lakes tributaries.

Depending on the weather, December can be a great month to sample the action. The only steelhead waters always fishable in December are the larger rivers with controlled releases from hydroelectric power stations, such as the Niagara, Oswego, Salmon and Black rivers. In the early part of the month, most other tributaries will be ice-free or nearly so. But once overnight readings fall consistently below freezing, small or slow-moving streams skim over. Longer warm spells or better yet, a drenching rain can signal several days of exciting fishing even in those creeks.

To avoid time-wasting trips to winter-locked waters, before heading out, contact local sources such as the DEC regional offices listed in this article,

The following steelhead streams beg to be visited this month when conditions are right:

CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY DUO
Overshadowed by larger streams, little Chautauqua Creek in and around Westfield and the even more intimate Canadaway (pronounced Can-a-da-WAY) Creek at Dunkirk are two top waters, with heavy runs of fish and relatively easy access and wading.

For the last several years, creel censuses conducted by the Department of Environmental Conservation's Lake Erie unit and Dunkirk sub-office have revealed that anglers on the two creeks routinely catch more than one steelhead per hour -- about 20 times the frequency on the nationally famous Salmon River.

In coming years, the phenomenal fishing in Chautauqua is likely to get even better, now that the DEC has implemented catch-and-release rules, adopted with strong support from DEC Region 9 steelheaders, for the 1.3-mile stretch between South Gale Street and the Westfield waterworks. That measure went into effect in October to let more fish complete their spawning runs.

Paul McKeown, the regional fisheries manager, believes Chautauqua and Canadaway creeks benefit from their proximity to Pennsylvania, which has high stocking quotas for its narrow slice of Lake Erie.