Sunday, November 26, 2006

Steelhead Are Runnin'..

It's the right time and the steelies are definitely in the rivers. I spent the three day weekend with my buddy Adam breaking in some new pontoon boats and fishing for steelhead. We arrived mid-day and decided to wade rather than contend with the boats and organize a shuttle. We drove to one of our favorite holes and found it open with a drift boat fishing downstream a few hundred yards. They surely had fished it hard. but we gave it a go anyway.

A while after the hole was rested, Adam hooked up.


The fish.

And then he hooked up again.

And again.

And then I got one.

The next day we broke out the boats and floated the sh!t out of that river. In fact, we floated way too much. Our float was a mere 15 or so miles which left frustratingly little time to fish. We were told we were doing a long float, but not too long. I think a good float on this river is probably 5 or less miles over a full winter day.

The morning started strong though.

.

And that was all the fish landed that day, although I did lose two nice fish...
Sunday we waded a half day, and today it was my turn to do some landing. Which I did, despite the snow.

This fish was tagged, and the tag is being sent back to DFG.

I closed out the weekend with this nice wild steelie.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Trinity River Steelhead

I spent the weekend up on the Trinity with a couple friends. We fished exclusively by wading. On Saturday we fished downstream of Douglas city in the morning and saw quite a few steelies and salmon moving through, but no hookups. We moved a little upstream and fished a great looking run that had a ton of fish rolling. I hooked this nice wild fish.


We did not catch any more fish in the run but did see another angler catch two bright fish.

The next day we fished a few different holes. In the morning my buddy Adam hooked a big fish but it shook the hook after a nice aerial display. We moved again and I high sticked a half pounder out from behind a rock.

Finally we drove to the final run of the weekend and had a great looking spot to ourselves. Fish were everywhere. Adam hooked four but they were all a bit too hot to be landed. I hooked a BIG fish on an egg pattern that must have been a salmon. It never jumped or ran too hard, it just sort of bull dogged down deep and took line at will. I had broken my steelhead rod the previous day and was using a 5wt with 3x on the dropper. After about 5 minutes of battle my knot to the dropper fly broke. It would have been nice to land him, but at least I have this picture from the fight.


Adam in the same hole setting the hook.