but this time of year nobody else does either and since crowds are my primary reason for staying home on Saturday and Sunday...
I decided to set out and see if I could repeat my success from yesterday.
Got up at 0700 and got my gear together.
Called my bud, Benny and left him a message.
Headed out to the river and arrived around 0900.
I saw a couple of fly fishermen and a kayaker.
Landed my first fish by 0940 and took some underwater shots before releasing her. Feisty lb and some change hen. Really pretty. She sucked and she swallowed so I had to cut out and leave her with an inner body piercing before the release.
Can you find her in this photo?
I went back to work and got a call from my redneck friend who was on his way with a tubba crawluz.
I still haven't figured this run out completely. It usually takes me a few days of experimentation before I know exactly how to fish it. And even then, it can sometimes pull a change up and what worked consistently before, suddenly doesn't.
So many variables involved to create the perfect drift....
I changed sinker diameter, hook sizes and styles, used fluorocarbon and straight mono, 8# 6# 4#, barrel swivels and pencil, pencil and split shot, 18" leader and 10" leader, thrown up current with light weight and down current with heavier weight, rigged the worm straight, wacky, with a puff ball and without, 1/4 1/3 1/2 the whole damn squirm, etc...
Benny came along and went upriver to fish a small piece of pocket water. He always likes working the small edge shit whereas I prefer the long, sweeping runs...
He hooks almost instantly.
I play camera bitch.
Pretty buck and half wild hen.
Benny likes Corkies.
My turn... straight crawler, no foo-foo shit.
Nice 2# hatchery buck. He gets released.
Benny hooks again...
...but the fish was faster than the fisherman and the shutterman so only managed an in the water shot.
Benny decides to call it a day. I contemplate leaving also.
Then the sense that God gave me kicks in and I realize that there is nothing more important in the world (or at least MY WORLD) than being on the river pursuing chromers.
I stay.
Hour goes by and nothing too exciting happens so I start thinking. Try a peach/orange spot glow bug whch gets railed by a big fish but I don't convert.
I keep dousing my glo-bug in Mike's Shrimp Oil and it keeps rolling along the rocks scraping up algae.
Back to the worm. Decide to follow Benny's lead and put on a peach corky above my crawler.
Good call!
Hook what I'm sure is a 12-15# salmon. My rod's bent over and the fish is slowly, methodically drawing its head side to side WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMP... It never breaks water but it pulls like a crack whore on a slot machine handle.
Eventually, I see color and it is the right kind of color!
3# CHROME hatchery hen.
To be sliced and diced.
I add marks to my steelhead report card, hang the fish on a stringer and continue fishing.
*Yes, that is ok to do provided you don't take any successive steelhead out of the water...
I also crimp my barbs after I hang a fish just so I can't possibly kill any next one...
After a long spell, I get snagged on a rock. I bounce my rod tip to free the weight and it pops off without issue. As I'm reeling up the slack, my line goes tight and a 5# hen jumps straight up in the air... I make the connection just as I feel my line go limp and the fish cracks the surface as she splashes back down in to the river.
I lost one more smaller fish in the next 1/2 hour and decided to call it a long and lovely day at around 1700 hours.
Another sex-less-she-steelie with under-ripe ova...
Gullet and gut were piped with algae...
But wait! What's this?
The AR trout and steelhead #1 staple...
Caddis fly larva...
LOTS OF CADDIS FLY LARVA.
My fly rod will see action very soon.
M
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