 Steelhead Defeat: Don't Judge A Fish Tale By It's Picture
Posted by jeremy on March 04, 2006
Upon first glance the picture that supports this fish tale leaves out allot of truths. Yes, these Brown Trout are certainly decent fish to catch. Absolutely, better than no fish at all. But we were targeting steelhead and, anyone who fly fishes the great lakes river systems knows that Brown Trout such as these are very common and infact fairly small. Last weekends trip to the Lake Ontario region was painfully humbling. Up to this point in the season, I had been having my personal best season ever. My confidence level was high and I was almost convinced that I had figured out the Steelhead game. Yup, I was tricking them everywhere I went and I was on top of my game. Then I showed up last week and everything changed. I showed up to my "go-to" drifts and nothing happened. I switched flies, added weight, subtracted weight, fished the swing, fished dead drifts, fished with an indicator and without. Everywhere I went, my situation seemed to keep spiraling downward. I just could not pull anything together and then I fell in the river. Oh yah, neck deep. Not just once, but 5 times throughout a 3 day stretch. This was especially not fun considering it was February and the temps were in the 30's. Outside of me getting beat up silly by the steelhead, I still had a blast. I fly fished with Fisherboy, waterwhippa, Greg and Caddishead. We had tons of laughs and pounded tons of water, always optomistic that things would be better up or down river or on another river. Well, things did turn around for Fisherboy and he caught his first Steelhead ever. And, that alone made the entire trip worth it. But, outside of that, it amazes me how Steelhead can be so seemingly easy to trick one trip and impossible to trick the next. Luckily, Fisherboy and
I walked way down river to a spot that we had in mind. We were able to trick these 2 nice Brown Trout, which we appreciated more than ever. So, I learned a very important thing on last weeks steelhead trip. Confidence is a necessary but dangerous thing. I think that any fly fisherman has to be confident in the methods he is using and his abilities. However, there is a fine line between confidence and foolishness. Because, the river showed me, five times, that it is much more powerful than me. And, the steelhead ignored all of my stuff, crushed all my theories and taught me a lesson in humility.
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Re: Steelhead Defeat: Don't Judge A Fish Tale By It's Picture
by waterwhippa on March 05, 2006 http://salmonriverspecialists.com | | If your going to play the game it is always going to be on the river's terms. The one thing that keeps me going back time after time is the lack of consistency. When you start to think you have it all figured out you get thrown the curve ball. Welcome to the Polar Bear Club bro. Nice job guys |
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