My guests were due! I came into today with great anticipation. Sarah booked the boat as a Christmas gift for Glenn. I stayed up late the night before tying special egg patterns and planning how I could change my strategies to produce a steelhead landing. Hooking one is huge, but landing one is Northwest fly fishing's Holy Grail. The river has remained low and clear for some time now. These fish have seen some gear over the Holidays. The amount of new fish in the system is most likely minimal, but there will be some moving upstream and maybe some moving up and down different forks. We had been hooking a few fish on bright colors which I prefer for the hatchery fish. It is time to go smaller and darker and more natural.
Sarah said she had been fishing for steelhead for six years, but no fish had yielded to her efforts. Wow! Different runs produce good feelings at different levels. The run I chose had not looked very appealing for some time, but at this level it looked right. The top is fast and the fish will be tight to the bottom or shore. The tail out flattens out and needs a little effort to swing the fly through it properly, but it and the bucket are the most likely area to find fish at low water temperatures. Sarah worked ahead of Glenn with a smaller black and purple moal leech that she had picked out. I was up working with Glenn in the fast water when she reached the tail out. Suddenly I heard yelling from Sarah and I practically ran Glenn over and right through his line to get to Sarah, yelling encouragements the whole way! I couldn't have been more excited! The emotions that this occurrence creates are phenomenal!
Sarah fought the fish well. It made no major runs but it did the scary steelhead rolling to test her hook set. It was a great hook set and she landed the beautiful hatchery hen. In the excitement, we never got a tape on the fish but it was around 22"-24" and between 3.5 and 4.5 pounds. It was amazing! Way to go Sarah. The Holy Grail! Thank you, I was ecstatic to be part of it.
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Glenn took this really cool water shot below. I can't wait for Glenn to get his first steelhead. The rest of the day was icing on the cake. We tried hard to get one for Glenn. Sarah hooked into another fish while drifting egg patterns. It seemed smaller so it might have been a dolly. There have been fewer dollies on the river. Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists said it is because of the 2003 and 2005 floods that hit right during the dolly varden spawn. Hopefully they will rebound. Well, that's it for 2007. Could there be a better way to end it?
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