Monday night I was out scouting a section of river for steelhead season. I’ve fished this area before, but only once. I was surprised by how much of the bottom was flat solid rock in this stretch of river. I thought this section offered more gravel bottom than it has. I managed to catch a handful of fish while I was out. The first fish I caught was a good size creek chub that hit a fly that was being stripped through a fast run. This fish hit like a bass, I was really surprised to find a chub on the end of my leader. I also caught a rock bass and a couple of smallies too. One of the smallies was a decent size, a picture of that fish is below. The larger smallie was caught along side a downed tree in faster current. The other smallmouth was caught just behind a long stone pillar that was stuck in the stream bed on its side. I cast to the end of the pillar that was deeper and as soon as the fly hit the water the bass crushed it. If I had to judge the fish by its strike, I would have told you this was a 3 pounder. I covered a lot of water in a short time since I was really out to scout. I would have liked to spend more time fishing some of these spots. I guess that will have to wait till later when steelhead season gets into full swing.
