There is an interesting article from USA Today on steelhead fishing in the Erie, PA area. URL is:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2004-11-24-steelhead-pa_x.htm

They claim the Erie fishery is worth $9.5 million per year, and has quadrupled in value in the last 20 years. The Erie area has only 60 miles of shoreline and a dozen rivers.

This shows the magnitude of revenues Washington State is losing simply because it doesn't promote sports steelheading. Think of the revenues all the Washington State rivers could generate if managed professionally.

Here is an amazing quote about catch rate:

"But the catch rate on Erie tributaries is still high. The study found that more than a half-million steelhead are caught each year, with the average angler catching a steelhead about every 90 minutes. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stocks more than 1 million steelhead smolts annually. Local clubs plant another 115,000 steelhead smolts each year on average.

"Out West, the fish are bigger, but out there, you catch two, three fish a day and that's a good day," Heubel said. "But for sheer numbers, Pennsylvania steelhead is the best place in the world. Around here, guys that fish all the time, they'll catch, 20, 30, a day."

Damn sounds like I need to move. Wait I am monving never mind.

Data from the American Sportfishing Assn indicates $561,058,124 was spent in WA freshwater sportfishing in 2001.

More data here if you are interested:
http://www.asafishing.org/asa/statistics/economic_impact/state_reports_freshwater.html

as someone who has just recently had the chance to fish some of the lake erie tribs (not pennsylvania), the numbers are truly sick. i've been told the smolt to adult survival is 50% or higher... and some small streams are stocked with 100,000 smolts. think of goodman creek with 30-50,000 steelhead in it.

but, it's near large population centers, so pressure can be high. private property laws are different, and fishers seem to have a higher threshhold for fishing in close quarters (lake ontario tribs during salmon runs are plain bizzare).

but to be honest, numbers aren't everything. i see people fishing techniques that seem almost boring in their effectiveness (2 guys hooking 15-20 steelhead out of a tailout in an hour). i'm having a blast, but really looking forward to fishing the coastal rivers next spring.

i think wdfw looks longingly at these fisheries as their dream.... lots of hatchery fish and no worries about wild steelhead management.

chris

The pacific ocean is such a hostile place for young steelhead and salmon. Lake Erie offers a safe and sacure inviroment for the little guys. You can't really compare the two places though it would be nice if we could get a quarter of the servival rate they do fishing would be a lot better.
JoJo

If we stopped taking inferior fish, breeding them and then released them into spawing channels, instead of releasing them to deal with rivers with too much silt, current and no cover.We should be stocking these local rivers with hundreds of thousands of steelhead, instead of these paltry numbers that seem to make sense to only a bean counter. If as they say that more fish means that the wild fish will not compete for the food, I have to ask how did the wild fish survive when there were millions of fish in the rivers?

My dad ran a boat on Erie and I grew up there. The Steelhead are a recent thing. Survival was very low before the zebra mussels cleaned up the lake (well that and China and --- productivity put Cleveburg out of business...that's another thread). Prior to the clear water provided by the zebra, the walleye and bass provided a very hostile environ in Erie anyway. I have dad's first lake caught fish, a 12# hen that hit a wigglewart on 4# Walleye outfit. Burned skin off old man's thumb. As things took off we had many 20 fish days off Lorain running spoons behind warts with the hooks removed - the wart acts as a diver.