Having had my truck broken in to a few days before, I elected to park elsewhere and take a different route.
I passed by the golf course and pondered the similarities and differences between sports.
Both require a lot of money, equipment and endless accessorizing, practical and technical knowhow, and constant refinement in order for the participant to be 'on his game'...
Each is an outdoor sport best practiced in the early morning hours. Each requires patience, perseverance and repetition for the sportsman to reap the inherent rewards and benefits.
Both involve hazards. In golf, there is rough, sand traps and water. In steelheading there is rough terrain (walked about in a 'skin-hugging neoprene straight-jacket'.
There are traps (usually not of sand but rather where all sand eventually settles... on the river bottom. The worst of all hazards is perhaps the miles of dead line, broken-off leaders, strands of mono-slicing Power-Pro and other worthless braided lines deposited by 'liners' who never got past the basic building blocks of drift fishing a river and can't seem to evolve beyond 'Cro-Magnon dredging' with an over-weighted, long-line and bead setup.
Tethered to these massive webs of dead line... are gobs of lead in long strands and cannonball-sized chunks suspended above swivels, more beads and hooks often large enough to pierce the ass of Jonah the Whale (or the ass of what few unsuspecting, king salmon remain in the river...) Together, these comprise a steelhead angler's worst nightmare.
Water... kind of speaks for itself as hazardous. It can infect you (Giardia) with one lick to your line while cinching a knot tight or it worse, drown you rather quickly in any of its many currents, back eddies, undertows, and/or submerged debris piles.
In each endeavor, at the end of the day, one can measure his or her successes/failures by the final tally kept with pen and paper. Golfers fill out a scorecard. Steelheaders complete a report card. They both serve a similar purpose but are numerically opposite in what constitutes a good score. Golfers strive for low numbers and hope for the miraculous occurrence of a hole in one. Steelheaders strive for big numbers and hope for the miraculous occurrence of hooking one in every hole...
Oh the shit one ponders on his way to the water for a few hours of fishing.
I brought the Himalayan Adventure pack, stuffed to the gills with way more shit than a man could ever need or use in an entire steelhead season...
I arrived and decided to ditch the armada of drift boats in the vicinity of my usual run. I retreated back up river and found a little cutaway in the willows where I could make a cast and get a decent drift. After 20 or so casts, I started thinking I might have fared better at the golf course... but I don't golf anymore so I kept on fishing.
At some point, I got tired of my night crawler sagging and sliding down the shank of my #6 hook so I downsized to a #12 Gamakatsu single egg hook. This was better for presentation but not much hook to embed in the mouth of any respectable steelhead so I cut and replaced with a size 10 and added a Corkie for bouyancy. The next drift was money! I hooked a small wild fish that lept out of the water and showed its spirit.
Lots of spirit but not much money... about 2 cents on the trout richter scale of size... but hell at least I knew I was getting down to the fish... Strangely... it was one of the very few smolts I've hooked this fall as most of the fish have been at least approaching 2# and up to 4#/5#.
I wandered around in search of the elusive winter or at least larger, fall run fish and after many casts decided that the worm wasn't going to make it happen. I clipped my leader and broke out the trusty spoon box. The BC Steele 1/4 oz. Gold has been the most consistent producer this fall so out it came and on it went.
By now, all of the boats had disappeared and my 'tee-off slot' and spot were open. I walked down and worked the close water first. Every 10 casts or so I moved down river and in a few inches closer to the current seam. My spoon got thumped pretty hard and finally I'd hooked a respectable fish. After a short and sweet little battle, I landed this 4# hatchery buck.
He revived fine and swam away healthy despite that I gave him a bloody lip. It's amazing what I sometimes overlook and the camera always picks up... Poor guy got his lip ripped.
Maybe that'll keep him smart and away from any more sharp hooks this season.
After releasing the fish, I realized what incredible lighting there was from the position of sun and clouds and so I snapped a couple landscape photos.
Benny and Sadie joined me later that afternoon but the fish ditched us and sent us all home with tails between legs.
I'm really looking forward to the winter run. Beating the banks for 1-3 hookups a day is better than a kick in the ass but I dream of multiple hookups and big, bright chromers.
WE NEED RAIN !@@!
Mark
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