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Story 2015 Discovery PA

Page history last edited by Jerome Moisand 8 years, 4 months ago

Discovery 2015: A Multi-State Journey

 

When

September 2015

Where

Erie, PA

 


Pennsylvania

 

Quick recap: I decided to drive and fish in every state between MA (where I live) and IL (where the CCC is hosted)... I had great success as a warm-up in New York (check the story here). Now onto Pennsylvania.

 

The drive from Syracuse (NY) to Erie (PA) was very easy, highway all the way. It was tempting to go check Niagara Falls and the corresponding river, but this will be for another time. I was very impatient to see Lake Erie!

 



 

I did absolutely zero homework ahead of time, so when arriving in Erie, I drove randomly to locate access to the water, and found a nice pier with multiple local anglers. Now see this guy on the next picture? I had no idea at the time, but he was going to become a key player in the story!

 

 

His name was James, he traveled all over Europe (it's handy to be French sometimes to establish contact!), he's a very impressive multi-species angler, and when I told him I wanted to catch a carp in Erie, he became very excited and volunteered to help. Well, be my guest!

 

He lead me to a marina where a Sheraton hotel has an interesting 'tunnel' between its buildings, which James uses as an observatory to locate schools of fish! Isn't that cool? On the side of the hotel, at the end of the pier, there is also a tower where one can climb the stairs, and same thing, watch for fish from up there.

 

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My new friend told me that this area was his best advice for me to fish, and I could easily believe it, given the proximity of both the marina and the large hotel (hence nutrients!). I decided to come back after dinner, and prebait the heck out of it, and agreed to meet James in the morning to fish together. 

 

Now Erie has a very peculiar structure, with a thin sliver of land that makes a large semi-circle forming a quasi-isolated bay inside the lake, and one can drive all around the so-called "Presqu'ile" (French words meaning "almost an island"). So I did before dinner, this was very scenic, and I have to say I debated with myself if I should fish from there, instead of fishing from the town itself... Oh well, next time! Just a couple of pics for you to see what I mean... Gorgeous scenery.

 

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After dinner, I prebaited as planned, and slept in a crappy motel, quite the rip-off, and decided to switch to Airbnb for next stops. I woke up early, went to throw more bait before getting breakfast, then started to fish around 8am. And... well, nothing much happened for a while. No quick run, no fish jumping or rolling, plenty of time to make a method mix, I was starting to wonder if I shouldn't have gone to the scenic areas.

 

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Out of nowhere, I got a run. And I lost the fish. AARG. Then nothing for 20 minutes. And finally another run, just when James arrived, he saw me playing the fish and took the picture of my first carp from PA! I was quite happy!

 

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After that, things warmed up and I landed several fish in a quick succession. James was very curious about my techniques, and I was happy to give him the next run, and fortunate to take this terrific picture, with the rod bend and the boat. And yes, the fish was successfully landed, and James was smiling from ear to ear!

 

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Bites kept coming, and the local ladies became intrigued by the weirdos catching big fish. James was all too happy to show off with the biggest fish of the day (18lb).

 

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Good things came to an end, as I had to drive to Ohio. I gave some carp tackle to my new friend, thanked him quite profusely, and drove away, starting to think with cautious optimism that hey, maybe I can pull it off and get a carp in every state! Easier said than done though. Stay tuned for the next chapter!

 

 

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