A beautiful day and perfect water on the Elk
More water than normal, this stretch is usually ankel deep
When arrived, the river near the access has a gravel bottom and I saw a few fish spawning. I fished the run behind them where fresh fish and dropbacks usually hangout… nothing. I continued to downstream and had this stretch of water to myself. I fished every hole and run. I started catching smolts. They must have recently been stocked. They are annoying little buggers. They hit the fly with reckless abandon. Finally, I hooked into something solid. I actually thought I was snagged on the bottom, when the bottom took off downstream I knew I had a good hook up. I fought the fish to the surface, it was a hold over, just as I worked into the shallows the hook came loose and the line shot back at me. I can’t explain the frustration of losing the first fish you hook up with when the fishing is slow. You wonder if you blew the only shot at a fish for the day (smolts don’t count).
Smolts everwhere
I kept fishing, I was determined. I waded past another group of spawners on gravel and began to work the run on into the pool behind the spawning bed. Here I had another solid hook up. The fish jumped out of the water when I set the hook! All right, fish on… now all I had to do was land this steelhead. It was another holdover fish. At this point I was not discriminating, a steelhead is a steelhead. If I land this fish I kill the skunk. I had been skunked the last three or four times out. It should be noted that conditions were horrible on those outings, but I had the rare chance to fish so I did. I really wanted to land this fish.
After a slug fest with this old boot of a fish, I finally beached the fish in the shallows. Man was this fish beat up. It looked ready to die. It was all spawned out; it had a lamprey scar on its breast. It was one ugly fish. She fought hard and promptly swam back to the depths of the run upon release, but she was UGLY. I continued to fish the same pool where I had just caught this fish and hooked up again, the second fish was an on the small side of average, but was not a small fish. Not a bad looking buck, but another hold over from the fall. It was a quick fight with one nice jump right, then straight to the bank. Hold overs are better than the skunk, but they don’t have the fight in them that a fresh angry chromer will throw at you.
Ugly, ugly fish
Another holdover from the fall
At this point it was about two hours until sunset, so I walked on downstream until I reached some posted land then I fished my way back up. I found a deep hole along a high bank under a tree and began to probe the depths. I was in up to my waist and I could feel the hole drop towards the bank. I hooked up to what I could tell was a real solid fish. I fought it up to the surface for a moment. This was one dark buck, it was almost black. Bucks will turn a smoky color when they are spawning or spawned out, but this fish was literally almost black. He kept changing directions on me. He was pulling down stream and to river right, I was on the left bank pulling up and to the left. This was a big fish and I was really putting the wood to him. He suddenly switched directions again and went up stream, I didn’t react fast enough and he broke me off. That was one tough old buck. He deserved to win that one. He fought a hell of a fight.
Uneventfully, I continued to fish up stream hitting every run and pool on the way back before darkness settled in. That smokey buck would be the last action I would see for the day. I hit the road for home at about 8:45. It was a long slow day with only a couple of fish brought to hand and disappointingly no chromers. I would have thought with all that water coupled with warmer temps there would have been a fresh run. Well, at least I caught a couple of fish and got the skunk off my back. It was better than the last few times out.
