On Saturday, I got to the river at dawn. The fishing was fantastic from dawn until about 10:00am. I had several hook ups and landed 3 steelhead before 10:00. Two of the steelhead I lost had broken off after a decent fight; I lost one to a bad knot and the other to frayed tippet. The fish that was lost to frayed tippet was a huge dime bright buck that jumped several times and ran hard; it deserved to win that fight. Right after that break off, I caught a small buck in the same run that was a nice rainbow color; the pic is below. I worked my way up river and found some nice pocket water that looked really fishy. I drifted through it and hooked up on the first drift only to lose the fish. I drifted through several more times, had another hook up and lost that fish too. I was getting frustrated. I decided to keep working this water as it seemed to hold several fish. On the next drift I had a solid hookup, it was a good fish that pulled HARD! I fought this fish for what seemed like an hour, but was probably more like ten minutes. It would not give up. I finally wrangled the fish to the bank. There was a guy and his brother within earshot so I asked him to come take a pic for me. He took the pic, but he’s not a good photographer. He got a decent shot of me with the fish wrestling to get out of my hands, one of me dropping the fish, and another of me with the fish in hand. The last one should have been a good shot, but he cut the fishes head off in the pic. She was a very large drop back hen. She was all scraped up from spawning and looked skinny and worn for her size. She took a small black bead head nymph with vengeance and fought like a lion. She was huge. You can see in the picture where I'm wrestling with her that she about 32"-33" so she must have weighed close to 13 lbs! After this fish, it hit the 10:00 hour and the fishing seemed to shut down. I decided to change locals as the section of river I was on was getting over populated with anglers.
First small buck from Saturday
Wrestling
oops!
Who cuts the head off the fish?
I drove down river to a nice spot that I have been fishing a lot recently. I got there and fished a nice run that has a deep drop off just under the riffle and then gradually gets deeper and is adjacent to a large eddy… this is really fishy water. I consistently find fish here. I hook up and lose a nice steelhead right away. I continue to fish this spot and hook up again almost immediately, I landed this fish after a respectable fight the pic is below. There were a couple of guys throwing bate with no success who I was fishing behind and they wanted to know “what the fish were hitting”. They must not have been making good presentations or must have been too high in the water column. Any fish will take live bait over a fly any day of the week and twice on Sunday. These guys were frustrated because I hooked up twice in like ten minutes of being there in the run they had just fished with no success. They went to fish that run again right after I left with no success. Ha, I’m a better angler! I caught a sucker fish in the next run that had some kind of weird growth all over it. I continued to work down river and back. The wind had picked up and made presenting the fly very difficult. I had one more hook up and which is when I had the second break off, again to a large fresh and feisty fish. It’s a disappointing thing to lose a great fish right before you leave. It makes me want to fish until I catch another and land it, but I had to go and get cleaned up to go to dinner with special lady.
Chrome!
What an ugly mug
On Sunday, I slept in and left to go fish at 11:00am. I got to the river and found the water to be too low and clear to have fish in some of the normal places. There were a lot more spawning steelhead on Sunday than on Saturday. I don’t floss spawners like some guys do. I like the challenge of fishing for fresh fish or drop backs in the runs. I had to work the limited green water; the good thing is I knew exactly where I’d find fish. The bad thing is those places were fewer in number and other anglers knew where to look too. I was only able to fish one of two good places at the first location because I didn’t want to crowd other anglers (I hate it when people crowd me). I worked the same run with the drop off where I had hooked up twice on Saturday. I quickly caught a small buck on a tiny orange egg pattern that was the same size and color as a real steal head egg; I matched the hatch, if you will. I went small and realistic to combat the low clear water. I continued to fish this run and hooked into a big dark buck that looked like a winter holdover. He leaped out of the water, ran down river, into the eddy, back upstream into the riffle and back down stream. By this point I had gained an audience of kids who had been walking on the path behind me and the other angler who had been fishing in the only other fishable run in the area. I fought this fish for a long time, it had the upper hand since, as it turned out, the fish was foul hooked. I didn’t know it at the time and it fought like a fair hooked fish, not to mention a foul hooked fish usually throws the hook quickly. I took a pic anyway because it was a long hard fight and I feel it was an accomplishment to land this fish foul hooked or not. After this I decided to drive up river to a better spot. I had the water to my self. I fished a few fishy steelhead green runs; I had one hook up with a fresh chromed up “skipper” and lost it. I did catch a large post spawn buck that was all beat up from the spawn and by flossers. He was in bad shape; I pulled out some flosser’s fly that was foul hooked in the fish’s back. He was so roughed up I just let him go without taking a pic. He needed to get back into the water. I moved up river and caught ANOTHER sucker; they are everywhere! Then I began to work some pocket water near a downed tree (where I caught the drop back hen the day before) and I hooked up once right away, again to lose the fish. Spring steelhead have a lot more fight in them than winter steelhead have; it takes a little getting used to. Even the best anglers lose a few spring fish. I continued to work the water until I had a rod breaking incident. I don’t want to talk about it. I was bummed out and had to leave early. What a pathetic end to a fantastic weekend of fishing.
Matchin the hatch gets it done
Foul hooked fish that fought like a son of a gun
