Family vacation draws biblical comparisons

This past weekend I did my best Jesus impersonation by descending into the fiery pits of hell, Redding, California and and on the third day rising again, returning to the Willamette Valley.

Night/ Day One

We get in late and our room is on the ground floor.  Drunks keep Shelly awake all night stomping over and over again to the ice maker conveniently located just outside our door. She complains and we get the room comped and we are moved.  Score.

We eat our free breakfast and head over to the Water Park.  Despite the lack of sleep, Shelly is in high spirits:

There are some pretty sweet rides.  About three hours in and I’m there with it.  The kids could do this all summer:

Back at the hotel, we are received at the evening reception and confiscate one of each of the kids free drink vouchers.  Between Shelly and I we have seven free drinks. Times are good.

Day Two

It’s like steping into a blast furnace–at 9:00 am. Daytime highs soar to 105 as we explore Turtle Bay. They have an awesome animal show, a nice aquarium, a distinctive bridge, a solid natural history museum, a sweet lego art exhibition and a T-Rex named Sue. It’s good.  It’s also hot, really hot.

Can you spot the teen?

I make a special effort not to complain about the heat–my reputation precedes me. Back at the hotel we are again received and quaff our free beverages. I ask the staff, “Is it always this hot in the summer?’

“No. It gets hotter.” Hmmmm.

A bit later we take the kids over to the Oasis Fun center. Outside, some of Redding’s finest are filming a Jerry Springer episode.  The Sheriff shows up and restores order, maintaining the thin blue line.   Sweet. The kids don’t notice and have a blast:

Day Three

The initial plan was to explore Shasta Caverns but life in the blast oven is taking its inevitable toll.  Sunburned and irritable we make an executive decision.  Retreat north to Oregon.  Immediately.  Around Oregon mile marker seventy on I-5 north, the mixed stands of scrubby oaks, longleaf pine, manzanita and madrone yield to the dense green blanket of douglas fir. The temperature has dropped a good twenty five degrees.

We are home and life is good.

Middle Fork Willamette River: Lit to Pop

Father’s Day, 2009

I’ll say it: the Middle Fork of the Willamette is a seriously underrated fly fishing river. That is fine by me. In fact, I think it is the best wild trout river in western Oregon. It’s probably a tough call which is better, the Upper Mckenzie above Blue River or the Middle Fork Willamette between Oakridge and Black Canyon and/or Hampton. That debate is for another post.

I figured the Middle Fork Willamette had to be fishing by now. I really started getting amped up when I saw all of the bug life coming off: Huge green caddis, smaller tan caddis and a bunch of PMDs. I tried my trusty combination and missed a nice bite right away. A few casts later I hooked what was obviously a big fish, a big fish that didn’t pull his weight. It meant what that normally means:

Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperative. Every time the sun was on the water, the bugs would explode and the trout would get active. I caught a planter and let it go. I should have killed it but wasn’t in the mood. I came across a group of fish rising to some caddis and broke off a fly in a good fish. Oops. Once the sun was completely obscured the fish turned off. I decided to take a break too. It was then I realized that I hadn’t only forgotten my net in my eagerness to fish but the camp stove too. I built a small fire ring and was munching on crab cakes in no time.

Post lunch I switched my nymph to a stonefly pattern that this trout scarfed up right away:

After a fishless hour or two my mind was wandering, wondering at the capriciousness of the Fish Gods . . .

‘you know it is Father’s Day and I’ve worked hard at parenting this year . . . plus I’ve done a lot for Trout Unlimited . . . you’d think the Fish Gods would have mercy . . .’

My rod slammed down and this nice trout had eaten a #16 light wet Cahill:

Bug activity picked back up. There were PEDs on the water and I caught several more trout none more notable than this fish that viciously attacked my Cahill like a Great White destroying a seal:

It was awesome and left me trembling. Trout ate the green caddis, lashed out at some tan elk hair caddis and grabbed the Possie bugger but the fly of the day was definitely the light cahill. Light colored mayflies are only going to get more important as the summer comes on strong.

Every time the sun was on the water there were tons of bugs: big green caddis, tan caddis, pale duns and I got the feeling I was sitting on a bomb. I suspect the next consistently nice day we get, the river is really going to fish.

Riding Out the Storm of the Century, Mckenzie River, June 4th 2009

Hyperbole aside, my dad and I have a long history of nautical misadventures. Basically, when the two of us get in a boat together there’s a decent chance of bad things happening. And so it was when we sailed out of Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior only to find ourselves about a dozen miles from the launch when the wind inexplicably died.  There was the time we (I) flipped our kayak on the Roehr River in Holland and I tried to drown myself thus sparing you from reading this post . . . .  Once  my dad sunk  a . . . well, at least I wasn’t there for that one. For that matter, my sister sent a paddle boat into Davy Jones’ locker on Dorena Reservoir last weekend so apparently she isn’t immune either.

Things started out innocently enough, finishing my chores we headed out to the Mckenzie on a beautiful cloudless day for my dad’s first flyfishing trip and first trip in my driftboat. The river was sparkling and clear, the sky blue and all was well:

Hell, things were going so well, I was even feelin’ downright cocky:

Looking back, there were ominous signs: the brutal storm from the day before might have been one. Maybe the Severe Weather Alert issued by the National Weather Service should have curbed my enthusiasm. Then again, what do they know? Besides, when a guy wants to fish . . . .

For a first timer, dad was doing quite well with the fly rod. We established a technique, missing two bites and losing one well hooked fish.

But things were not as well as they appeared. On the horizon, black clouds approached fast and an intense lightning storm was getting closer by the minute. We hoped it would pass and tried to fish through but as the intensity of the storm increased, it became readily apparent that waving a stick in the air wasn’t particularly wise. I anchored in a sheltered area, laid the rod down in the boat and we debated the merits of floating mid-river or hanging beneath the trees not really sure what was worse. Of course, we needed to get to the takeout; we soldiered on.

Then the rain hit–a heavy, pummeling, wind-driven, merciless downpour. Moving in sheets across the river, it obscured the normal riffles and glides making the Mckenzie resemble a pockmarked moonscape more than my familiar home river. As we headed into the heaviest rapid of our run, the wind began gusting, dad (to his credit) howled with delight at the intensity of the storm, rapids and river. We were definitely living.

I struggled against the wind to keep her bow pointed downstream even as I strained to keep one eye open. The wind, bad enough on its own was blasting the heavy rain into my face turned three quarters to the storm for protection. My stinging eye kept closing involuntarily even as I knew I had to keep it open, had to avoid the boulders that I knew were below.  Air was becoming one with the water and we were in the middle of it. It was hard to breath and we panted trying not to inhale the water being pounded into out faces.  From catching fish, my biggest concern had quickly morphed into caring only about getting my passenger and boat home safely.

Meanwhile, back at home over the radio, ‘Beeeeeeeeep–This is the Emergency Broadcast system. This is not a test. A powerful and heavy thunderstorm is moving across the region. Expect high winds, lightening and heavy rain, possibly hail. Please do not go outside. Stay away from your windows . . . .’ Shelly, in the kitchen worried, ‘Oh no. They are out there. On the river . . . .’

The boat was becoming sluggish and unresponsive.  The rainwater had filled her to the floorboards. I didn’t know how much more she could take before sinking.  Thankfully, I still don’t.  Anchored up we began furiously bailing, trying to keep up with the water we were taking on.  I felt bad and tried to pacify dad who was vacillating between good-humor and peevishness at my unpreparedness by explaining,  “Sorry. This is the worst shit I’ve ever seen.  This never happens.’” I needed to make him understand, I’m not a moron, this isn’t normal . . . these are extraordinary circumstances . . . . I think he got it the next day when almost everywhere he went everyone was talking about the freak nature of the storm.

Anyway, The rain slackened and our bailing began showing results.  Dad even got out the camera. Check out my rain blasted eye:

The river had come up 500 cfs and debris was floating past, logs and limbs. Heck,  a birdhouse bobbed by but at this point, I knew we would make the take-out. Cold and soaking wet maybe but we would make it. “Dad, you didn’t realize this was a murder-suicide plot, did you?” I asked as we headed downriver, the worst behind us.

We caught up to the birdhouse and I had dad get the net.   ‘Scoop that thing up,’ I told him. ‘At least we’ll have something to show for this crap.’ And so we ended up with a trophy.

We landed at Silver Creek and I prepped for my attempt to hitch back upriver to my rig. Dad was soaked so I checked out outhouse. It was warm from the microbial action and I knew dad, drenched to the bone was cold. “Hey dad, if you get cold, it’s warm in there.  It stinks, but it’s warm.”

I started the eight mile slog back to my truck, thumbing every truck that went past and they all broke the code. No one stopped even though I was wearing my golden ticket, my waders. Losing faith in humanity, I first started cursing the Toyoto truck drivers bitterly, “Can’t even buy an American truck. The only thing the US manufacturers do well and you still gotta buy a Japanese vehicle. Don’t wanna hurt your resale value by putting something in the bed, eh? Go mountain bike or something,  Assholes.” After a few more miles though my disgust was big enough for everyone and especially for the dudes driving beater trucks.

The river was really off color and I had lots of time to assess where the sediment was coming from as I trudged upriver . . . Quartz Creek on Rosboro Lumbers land. Heavy logging on steep hillsides above the creek and the topsoil was washing away and into the river.  Jerks.

Finally, about a mile and a half from the truck, a fellow in a Subaru going the other direction rolled to a stop on the shoulder, “You need a ride?” Man did I ever. “I was at the Post Office and saw the rig at Forest Glenn and then I saw you with your waders and put two and two together.” I hopped in his car. ‘Thanks, you’re a life-saver. I’ve been walking since Silver Creek.’ “Silver Creek?” His eyes wide. “Did you try thumbing it?” Yeah, I tried that. “and nobody picked you up? Man, what is wrong with people?”

He dropped me off at my truck, my faith in humanity restored and I headed downriver. Dad had taken refuge in the outhouse and poked his head out as I pulled up to the ramp. “I was getting worried. You walk the whole way or get picked up? “  I relayed the sordid story with its happy ending to him.

“Dad, I got you into this mess. Why don’t you stay in the truck. I’ll keep it running and the heat on.” He protested but only for a minute and warmed himself in the cab as I loaded her up. “The women are probably pretty worried,” I mentioned, but Dad had already called Shelly. At least she knew we were alive as of that call.

On the way home, I kept waiting for a final disaster, a smoked bearing, a trailer tire coming off the bead.  Anything.

But, it wasn’t to be. We made it. I’m ready to go again tomorrow, but I’m not so sure about dad.

For Love of the Spinner . . . .

Here’s one that I could never publish on the Oregon Fly Fishing Blog . . . .

It is no secret that I love to fish spinners for salmon and steelhead.  I never use them for trout.  The only way to fish trout for me is with flies that I tied myself.  But, unless you are gut hooking native trout with worms in an area where their population is depressed it really isn’t my place to judge your fishing.

Let’s talk mortality: I find I hook most fish in the corner of the mouth fishing spinners.  This is true whether the hook is a treble or a single.  Only once have I mortally wounded a steelhead spinner fishing.   Fortunately, she was spawned out.

Now, I fly fish for steelhead and salmon, don’t get me wrong but some water does hold fish but doesn’t lend itself to the fly. Should I pass over this water?

One friend tells me he just finds fishing with a fly rod inherently more satisfying. Good for him.  Seriously.  As another friend said to me recently, “you have to do you.”  So I’m going to keep doing me and fishing spinners.  Here’s why:

1. The hook-up is awesome

There rarely is any mistaking when a steelhead or salmon takes a spinner.   It’s normally a chompity-chompity surge or just a smashing grab.  Rarely is the take a gradual pull.  I’ve seen winter steelhead turn and chase my spinner down crushing it at full speed.  Talk about an adrenalin rush.  It’ll leave you shaking.  That just isn’t going to happen fishing an egg pattern under an indicator.

2. It is simple but takes skill

Simplicity is one thing that I love about fishing dry flies for trout.  The  cast, the line, the leader, it all comes together and is effortless.   Come Fall and Winter the Northwest rivers are swollen to epic heights and getting down into the fish zone is tough.  Do I need a Skagit line with a 300G head or . . . who gives a shit?  My mind shuts off when I hear the guys discussing that stuff.   Besides I don’t want to carry eight flippin’ lines when I go fishing.  I don’t want to spend my day reconfiguring my line.  I want to fish.  Besides, fly fishing for winter steelhead and fall salmon is generally inelegant. When I do fly fish for salmon and steelhead, I fish small water with a weighted fly and a floating line.  It keeps things simple and can be effective.

You don’t have to overthink spinner fishing for winter steelhead.  Get a #5 silver/silver spinner and get to work.  Cast, swing retrieving slowly, repeat.  Methodical, effortless, meditative and a lot like swinging a wet fly.  Sure, there are times for colors but if you had to pick one for winter steelhead . . . .

As for fall salmon, fish a #5 with a chartreuse body, or orange or pink, or blue . . . you can fish a brass and brass and the trusty silver and silver works as well.

3.  Spinner fishing is active

I like to move when I fish.  I don’t like to pound the same water all day.  With a spinner, if a fish is  there that will hit, you know.  Quickly.  If not, move on.

4.  Spinners are versatile.

While the Salmon and Steelhead angler’s bible indicates that spinners are best used in shallow riffly water, I have found success just about anywhere a fish might hold.  A riffle that drops into a bucket?  Fish On.  Tributary mouth?  Fish on.  Steelhead Riffle?  Fish On.  Deep Pool?  Let her sink and retrieve.  Fish on. In front of a rock? Fish on. In the tailout of a pool? Fish on. I can only think of a couple situations where spinners are useless.

I can’t think of any other method that is so effective over such diverse water types.

This bring me to my last reason.

5.  They are effective.

Spinners work.  Well.  I’ve pounded water with my fly rod many times for a half hour or more, hung it up and had a fish grab my lure within a couple casts.  I don’t go out hoping to catch fish. I expect to catch fish.

Spinner fishing I’m active, mobile, agile and hostile . . .

Salmon restoration expert Charley Dewberry’s presentation blows my mind

This article is a republication with slight modifications of a piece I wrote for the Oregon Fly Fishing Blog.

“The good news is that the fish are still here. Despite our best efforts for the past hundred years, they are still around.” Charley Dewberry, March 2009.

As good a starting point as any . . . . The fish are still here, largely anyway:

Graphic Courtesy of the Sightline Institute.

But as the graphic shows, they are threatened. Our task is restoring salmon and their watersheds and to do that we need to know what the habitat and watershed looked like and how it functioned in its undisturbed state. This has been a large part of Dewberry’s life’s work.

According to Charley, large woody debris placement projects as they were and still are (to a certain extent) being conducted are not “restoration.” They are “band-aids”, or ” random acts of kindness” that have their place and will boost numbers in the short run but will never achieve true restoration.

When Charley’s work began, Forest Service restoration planning consisted of clear-cutting and placing a large woody debris jam where convenient. This didn’t bring salmon back, that much was clear. The question was, why not?

To answer that question, Charley asked the fish. As architect of the Knowles Creek restoration project, he snorkeled the entire length of Knowles Creek in the Siuslaw basin and what he found was something of a surprise: three fourths of the salmonid smolts were in one beaver pond. This area obviously was highly productive. He also noticed that in years when smolts were relatively abundant they were small; when they were scarce, they were large. It doesn’t take a biology degree to riddle that one: they are food limited.

Charley realized that the whole watershed is not created equal for salmonids. Instead, the entire Knowles Creek basin contains about 20 “flats.” If the creek near the flat was being slowed, clogged with the boulders and enormous trees from a debris flow, this would create a slower water habitat ideal for rearing salmon smolts. These areas, where flats coincided with log/debris jams are described quite aptly by Charley as “pearls on a string.” The system was never static . . . the “pearls” moved on the string but the constant was that some of these these high value habitats, the flats, were life supporting pearls . . . .

The lesson? Large woody debris projects need to be strategically placed in areas with high intrinsic potential, not where a road is conveniently near the creek, or underneath some timber unit where you have some spruce logs stacked. Another thing Charley mentioned is the types of trees that were present in these debris flows can’t be helicoptered in, can’t be truly replicated by anything but time and natural occurrence, they need to grow again.

These were true Oregon Coast Range giants, the backbone of the historic log jams that formed beneath the flats and created the conditions that made huge runs of adult salmon possible: remaining in place until perhaps another catastrophic storm event; decomposing over a period of twenty or more years; collecting the leaves, carcasses and debris that form the base of the food chain; and, retaining the gravel that adults need to spawn. They were trees like this and lots of them:

Now, what comes sliding down the hill is smaller second or third growth and associated slash and debris that holds for at most a couple minutes temporarily damming the creek until the tremendous hydraulic power of the water blows it out, sending sediment downstream constantly and scouring the creek bed–more similar to splash damming during early log drives than historic conditions.

These photos show this phenomenon as the old growth spruce that forms the backbone of this jam has collected only much smaller debris in year two:

The action, as Charley sees it, is as much on the slopes as it is in the riparian area. The areas where historic debris slides occurred, (and these are a limited number of areas) need to be protected from harvest so that enormous trees may again grow and slide into the watershed.

We’ve been thinking too small, according to Charley, focusing our restoration efforts on the reach scale rather than looking at the entire watershed. There are three things that need to happen according to Dewberry in order to see meaningful “restoration.” In his view, all of these things have to be done to see fish populations recover:

• Protect highly functioning areas and areas with high intrinsic potential to contribute to fish productivity.

This means protecting the upslope areas that are likely to contribute large woody debris to the system naturally, the debris fans. This also means protecting the riparian areas. This also means protecting or restoring the flats.

• Stormproof the roads.

The Oregon Coast range is built out with many roads. Where streams cross these roads, the culverts need to be designed for a one hundred year flood event. If the culvert does fail, it should be designed to fail at the crossing. It is much more destructive for the water to flow in the road ditch for a couple hundred yards and then blow out the road flowing downhill through an area that hasn’t been previously eroded in that manner.

• Re-establish mixed species riparian areas.

Currently riparian areas are alder dominated and restoration efforts often focus on planting alder. Alder is important. It is a nitrogen fixer in a nitrogen depleted system and it is also “the fastest leaf in the west.” Alder drops its leaves first and they are the first to be eaten by the stoneflies that are the most important aquatic macro-invertebrate in the Coast Range watersheds. But, alder leaves are also the first to decompose. Right now, in February/March everything (the bugs anyway) is eating maple leaves. It isn’t as high quality food, but it lasts. Currently, maple is in short supply. Without food there are no bugs. Without bugs there are no salmon.

For those of us that care about salmon restoration, the task before us is huge and daunting. But we are very lucky in that the Siuslaw, which is in our backyard has some of the best potential for recovery of any river in the United States. The stream used to (and still does at times) produce huge numbers of fish, much of the basin is in public ownership, Florence, at the mouth, is the biggest town in the watershed, and with the exception of industrial forestry, there is really no industry in the basin. According to Charley, if we can’t do it on the Siuslaw, we can’t do it anywhere.

I believe that with hard work, the Siuslaw can recover. If you think otherwise, it might be worth remembering that despite our best efforts, the fish are still here.–KM

Bittersweet end to winter steelhead season

This past Tuesday I took a day off and headed into my favorite backcountry steelhead river. This price of admission is steep–like the trail in and keeps the hordes away. The payoff? This river cranks out steelhead. I’ve never been skunked down there . . . ok, once but the water was totally blown out. Doesn’t count.

I fished the fly rod hard, working the first good hole hard. Every possible drift, around rocks, in front of rocks, the soft pockets behind the rocks, I covered it all. I spent about 30 minutes on that. I gave up on that hole with that method and ran a spinner through the same water I had just thoroughly worked. Fifth cast and my rod bucked hard . . . and then it was over. Huge fish, heavy water, broken line. Odd.

I continued to work upstream hitting all the good holes with the fly rod. Nada. I took a couple photos of the natural development of a log jam.

Year one:

Year Two:

I made one throw away cast with the spinner and saw a fish turn and chase, slamming it ferociously. Sadly, the hen steelhead had eaten my spinner deeply and she was hooked in the gills:

She was pumping blood and it wouldn’t clot–fish blood doesn’t, and that she would die from her wound. There are no hatchery fish in the river and you can’t keep wild fish. I considered keeping her anyway though she wouldn’t cut well but decided against it, that her body was better spent feeding the river where it would do more good. I watched her swim away weakly . . . .

I continued upstream, fishing less enthusiastically but further upstream than I have ever fished before and it was worth it. I found lots of good water that I’ll hit again and I was eaten twice more, though neither fish got stuck. I didn’t mind.

For now, my thoughts are turning towards spring and fly fishing for trout but I know I’ll be back next year and can hardly wait . . . .

Lake Creek Steelhead Adventure

Previous trips from the bender weren’t worth posting about. I got skunked two trips running. I got some photos of a snail. They have cool skin texture. The end.

Papa Matt and I decided to give Lake Creek a run. Despite its proximity to Eugene, about 40 miles, I’ve rarely fished it. I’d call that a mistake. We put in at Deadwood Creek and Matt started us off shortly with a nice sea-run cutthroat trout. Not our chosen quarry and not particularly sporting on a 11 foot switch rod, but a pretty fish that we were happy to see:

We headed downriver and posted up at a nice looking spot and began to work, Matt with the fly rod exclusively and me giving both the fly rod and the level wind some playing time. It wasn’t too long before I hooked up:

We moved downriver and as we floated through the really fast moving skin and bones water below Green Creek a monstrous steelhead ate Matt’s egg pattern. We were moving downriver fast and the fish was laying track upstream even faster. The rod bent near its limits and was pulled almost instantly under the boat. It took about two seconds for me to react, trying to pivot the boat backward to get off the fish and the rod but those were two seconds too many and the fish snapped Matt’s twelve pound leader . . . . a few expletives and then a melancholy fell over Captain and First Mate alike . . . .

We only saw one other steelhead beneath Green Creek but the rapids were difficult enough to keep me entertained. Big, churning cataracts with exposed boulders everywhere with one passable route, this run is not for the inexperienced oarsman. A couple times we had to grease the sides to slip through some narrow passages. It was a blast.

We continued to catch sea run cuts throughout the trip but a third steelhead hook-up alluded us.

It was good to fish with Matt again. It had been far too long.

The Beginnings of a Winter Steelhead Bender

I haven’t fished much for winter steelhead this year and I recently resolved to change that situation. I’m planning early morning assaults on the Siuslaw several days this week. Today was day one.

The weather was bad. A rare Coast Range snow event (in March no less) had the highways slick and on the way to the river I was just a couple minutes behind a truck that ran off OR 126 and plowed into the mountain. Emergency responders weren’t on the scene yet but I was able to make it through, luckily. The pick-up was blocking one lane and I swerved left into the lane for oncoming traffic. Mercifully, there was no one coming the other direction. It would have been hard to stop.

I was on the water before daybreak. It was my first time rowing in the pitch blackness with only a headlamp to light my way and it added a bit of intrigue. Once it was light I began to plug my way towards the take-out:

The fishing was slow and I didn’t hook up on the Slaw. Not willing to accept a skunking I headed over to a nearby drainage and salvaged the day:

The adventure wasn’t quite over… At the higher elevations it had continued to snow and seeing this, I had to stop and make sure no one was hurt:

They weren’t or even with their vehicle so I did what anybody would do, I documented the carnage. These guys are really lucky that they lost control to the right and not the left. The left, a drop off of several hundred feet would have made for a much worse day.

I’ve heard faith can move mountains, Cutlasses, apparently not so much.

Poacher Scum Apparently Pillages Oregon’s Yachats River

On February 18, 2009 a stream survey team found a gillnet hidden in the bushes where Beamer Creek Road intersects Oregon’s diminutive and inaptly named Yachats River.

Located south of Newport, the Yachats hosts runs of fall chinook and coho as well as winter steelhead. Special angling regulations are in place to protect these runs. Anglers are permitted to keep one chinook per day up to five for the season. The stream is closed to retention of coho or steelhead. Non-commercial use of nets is never legal in Oregon rivers except to land a legally hooked fish. Nothing wipes out a run faster than an indiscriminate curtain of death.

Tips should be called in to Senior Trooper Doug Canfield at (541) 265-5354, Ext. 304.

Be safe out there but do your best to report poachers, there is a number on the back of your license. TURN IN POACHERS BY CALLING: 1-800-452-7888.

One Mule Team Actually Fishes: 1st Steelhead Trip, 1st Steelhead of 2009

It has been a long and painful absence from the blogosphere but more painful was the fact that until this weekend I hadn’t fished in 2009 at all. First there was the trailer to repair and then the truck took about a thousand dollars worth of wrenching.

Not that I’ve missed a whole lot. Our winter steelhead run has been paltry and following a downer season for chinook, I’m pretty bummed at the state of the coastal anadromous fisheries this fall/winter. I suppose there is still some hope for the steelhead season, the bizarre drought during what should be our monsoon season has kept the rivers low and clear and hopefully the fish are just staging for their ascent. We’ll see . . . .

I fished with Todd Mullen on Saturday, hitting a river fairly close to home. We started at the upstream deadline even though conventional wisdom is: “Low water, fish low. High water fish high.” Whatever, I want to cover it all.

For only the second time, the first hole didn’t produce a fish, and so it went for hours. We didn’t see a fish, sniff a fish, or scratch a fish. Now, steelhead are elusive and capricious critters but given how low the river was, if they were there in any numbers we’d have seen them.

We worked hard, I swung leeches through good fly water and Todd fished weighted egg patterns most of the day. After giving the flies a good shot, I’d bat clean up with a spinner. Finally, a fish grabbed my silver lure and I’m not sure who was more surprised, me or the fish. It was one of those fish who didn’t realize the gravity of the situation until he saw me . . . then he fought in earnest. There was a shelf at my feet and I fought in constant fear of the fish running my leader against the rock ledge-I wasn’t quite ready to part ways. I had to keep the rod tip way up when the fish was in tight to avoid the shelf:

After a good brawl, I got him in for his photo shoot:

The action was a bit slow for my liking but really with steelhead, it just takes one to make for a pretty good day. There are a few fish out there apparently, but you’ll have to work to find them.