Hook Your Dream - The BEST Great Lakes Steelhead Fishing tributary IN THE NATION - "THE CATT"

On October 23, 2024 we embarked on what would be a dream day on the water. Arriving at a creek known by locals as "The Catt" is always a dream day (if you get there early enough to get a good spot). This section of the Cattaragus Creek in Buffalo NY isn't typically fishable very many days in the fall. It's one of the few gravel tributaries in the area and its turbidity is extremely sensitive to run-off and fluctuations in water level.

This fall was a year littered with low water across the Great Lakes. People were driving hundreds of miles by mid October to scratch the itch catch a fall run steelie before temps begin dropping in mid November. Anglers from Canada, Western PA, and even Ohio were all converging on the one fishable body of water; The Catt.

Most falls you'd be lucky to see the turbidity get low enough to fish this place once or twice. This season, it was the only body fishable for weeks in a row!! After two small trips in the two weeks prior, Michele and I finally arrived early enough one day with our buddy Wayne to lock down the best community hole on the river on a mid week adventure there.

A hole referred to as "The Cabbage Patch" had produced some awesome fall fishing for me in the past and I was extremely excited to finally get to share it with Michele. We started dropping floats right at legal fishing light and the rest of the day was absolutely ELECTRIC!!! I caught the hott hand early and it never stopped. With about 10 to 10.5hours of legal fishing light in our day, here is the first half of it.

All our fish were caught on 8mm and 10mm beads from SteelyBeads. My favorite color is definitely Elon Muskie, but fish at The Catt are always susceptible to any chartreuse pattern as well. We found that changing up our bead color several times through out the day produced results for us when the bite windows seemed to go cold on us.

As always, thanks to @BKKHooksInternational for supplying us with the best high carbon steel available. The Allrounder-SS in size 6 was used to catch every fish for us. BKK Hooks may seem to be sized a bit small compared to most anglers other brands of hooks, but I promise you, the strength is there. The hardening/tempering process BKK puts their hooks through is second to none!! Trust your hook ups to BKK and you wont be disappointed!!!