This past week I ran a steelhead trip with two anglers that were able to fish very well, and all of the planets lined up properly as far as "steelhead mojo" goes. The guys hooked up with fish throughout the trip, and fish were taking both swung flies and dead drifted egg patterns. The spring chinook are starting up their spawning now, and it will last for the next several weeks; so the eggs rolling down the river really draw the attention of the steelhead and resident trout (along with many other organisms out there). During this time, the light angles stay low in many of the spots; so the fish seem to be more aggressive and bite better than the weeks past when the hot weather and sunshine dominate.
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| Nice rose colored cheeks on this buck that decided to sprint 100 yards downstream |
This day was the first really successful day where all of these conditions seemed to pan out for really good fishing. The morning temperature was in the upper 40s, and the fog was fallen into the river valley for most of the morning, and it burned off about noon-ish. The water level is super low now; so all of the "gear" anglers do not prefer to fish much anymore for the summer steelhead, and boating can be tough for novices. Many of the riffles are very rocky, and people who cannot run a boat in and out of rocks will bang hard, and that causes many to stay off the water. This day was a combo of anglers who could cast far, present the fly fast when needed, and fish that were into what we were offering to them.
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| Steelhead on with a tight line!! |
By the time the sun burned through and the temperature warmed up, the fishing was still good until we hit the last couple of spots. By then it was obvious the sunshine was affecting the fish, and you can see them taking off upstream after our flies blindly swung into the spots. We ended up even seeing a few fish in the very last spot of the day, but we could not get any of them to budge into biting what we showed them.
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| Bombs Away!!! - Steelhead going kurplunk! |
Paul and Derrick ended up getting into fish swinging flies blindly into probable spots, they got a fish blind nymphing into a spot after swinging it, they got into a fish sight swinging, and a couple sight nymphing with trout beads. They worked runs stepping down and swinging, they fished to sighted fish from the comfort of a driftboat, and we worked vast long runs with long swings and lots of back paddling. Switch rods were the choice of equipment used on this trip, and they worked excellent for the all around used mentioned. What a first good day of fall summer steelheading! I look forward to many more!
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| This fine Hen couldn't resist the swung black and cerise Motion Prawn |
Enjoy the video of some of the days events out on Paul and Derrick's Steelheading trip:
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