Tuesday November 1, 2011

After breakfast in the room, we thought that 2A would be a good place to for the morning session. My Dad and Dave hit the north side and went upstream. I stayed on the south side to head up to the compactor. Loren was rigging up with a client for the day so we shared some water and I stayed out of their way. I asked Loren if it was okay if I skated some flies through the very tailout and he said, “Sure, no problem.” I skated an orange foam back fly for a good hour and worked the tailout hard. It wasn’t to be so I headed up to the head of the run since Loren and his client were about halfway down the run. With the low flow I opted for 3.9 ips poly leader and tied on a non-descript purple and blue soft hackle spider like fly. No takers for either of us, so I decided to hit the fast water below the compactor and keep working my way downstream. I fished through the pockets in the riffles and got to an area I like that always looks promising. I’ve seen other methods take steelhead out this area, but I have never had success there. Regardless of past attempts I always get excited when I’m in “good water,” even if it isn’t the best for swinging flies. Laid out a cast and let a nice belly form in the line and the fly began to swing through the top of the run. The sun was at my back and I was watching the end of the fly line when I see a flash of silver in the area where my fly would be swimming. Then I feel the thump, so I let go of the loop, the line comes tight and a hot little dime bright chromer jumps and thrashes around the riffles!! She was just big enough to take a little drag, so she tired out quickly and I landed her mid stream. The barbless hook came out easily and she was on her way. After that I headed downstream of the 2a bridge and worked that whole run and the run below the island, but no more hookups. All in all an awesome morning and the weather was great….to good for this time of year. I met up with Dad and Dave and we headed back for lunch. For the evening session I decided to head to the Trestle area and fish all the way down to the Refrigerator and see if the floods had changed anything. I started in the slow water up above and Dad and Dave headed down to the riffles. Not much was happening there in the low flow and a bunch of people showed up so I went downstream and hopped in above Dad and Dave. I went through once with a married wing fly known as “Twilight,” which is a Mark Waslick pattern found in John Shewey’s book. About halfway down the run I checked the fly to see what it looked like and the darn wing had pulled out but the roof was still on. Damnit!! Might as well finish out stretch with it anyway. Just above the bend the fly hit the water and started swinging, had a nice tug and did a no no…..i set the hook instead of dropping the loop. I had the fish on for a few seconds, but it ran right at me and I couldn’t keep the line tight so the hook came free. DOH!! Oh well that’s how it goes sometimes when I’m not focused.

I was determined and wanted to give the stretch another try before heading around the bend so I headed to where I like to hop in. I decided to put on a different married wing this time I called the “Ugly Duckling,” since some things didn’t turn out how I would have liked. I worked some line out and was swinging away enjoying the day. Not long after I started my second pass, there was some commotion in the water on the far side of the bank. Most likely a king chasing another fish away from its bed, so I made the cast to the far side a couple of feet above the spot where the commotion was and hoped for the best.

The fly just started swinging and the line was ripped from my hand and the drag starts singing. A small steelhead comes flying out of the river and kept a nice bend in the rod. He played hard in the fast current a fought extremely well for a fish of his size. I quickly played him out and led him down to Dave who was ready with the camera. A couple of quick photos and he was back on his way to hunt eggs. Yeah baby!! My first steelhead landed on a married wing!!

I kept the ugly duckling on for the rest of the evening as I worked my way down to the refrigerator hole. I had three more plucks with this fly in the smooth water but couldn’t get a hook up. The guys above me were hooking up as the sun got off the water and I could see steelhead moving through, but I couldn’t get a yanker. It was getting dark so I headed up the mucky hill, thumbed it and two guys were nice enough to give me a ride down the dirt road. The driver put the hammer down and started flying down the road and I told him about the pot holes. He said it’s alright as he is dodging them left and right. All of a sudden a deer hops out in front of us, but the driver didn’t see it so I spoke up. He jammed on the brakes and came to a sliding halt, missing the first deer and the three others that crossed afterwards. After they dropped me off I found out it was a rental car. No wonder he didn’t care about the pot holes or the muck I got on the seat!!