Spring is in the air

I fished all day yesterday and this afternoon.  It was a tad chilly and sunny.  The river was in fine shape yesterday, a little low and starting to clear today.  yesterday, I swung streamers and drifted nymphs and egg patterns.  I had a few nips on the streamers, but no hook ups that way.  Yesterday I hooked a beast of a fish!  This buck steelhead was over 30 inches with big shoulders and was probably close to 12 lbs.  It was pretty fresh, still mostly silver, just starting to get red cheeks.  It ran hard and fought a good fight.  It must have taken me over 10 minutes to bring this fish to hand.  I caught this fish in the bucket below a big riffle in the current brake between fast water on a small black stone fly.  It was definitely the fish of the week; there is a pic below.  Today, I swung down stream and drifted back up.  Again I had a nip or two at the streamer and no hook ups.  I hooked into two fish today and lost both.  I was pissed!  The first fish was a “skipper”.  The second fish felt bigger, but I didn’t get a look at it.  It was a good week on the river.  It started slow before the river dropped into shape and then heated up nicely.