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 Steelhead Adventures: "See Ya Later''
Posted by shaq on March 28, 2006
As fly fishermen, we all use any excuse to get out on the water. Through that process, we take invitations to new locations, meet new friends and forge new adventures. Most often or not we are alone, knee deep in new rivers, or pulled over on the sides of country back-roads, peering over topo maps whispering to ourselves as though some lost hiker would hear us and take our "Secret" spot. This weekend though I paired up with an old friend. A fly fishing partner, with whom I shared trials and errors. He was there when I took my first trout on the fly and I was there for his. We have spent 90-degree fishless days crawling through the underbrush in neoprene waders and freezing cold steelhead trips in leaky ones. Our triumphs have been epic and our failures even more so. We were roommates in college and spent so much time together fishing, hunting, playing guitars at bonfires and goofing off that our circle of friends had started calling us Sceff. A merging of our two names which saved time because if you found one, the other wasn't too far behind. Standing in the parking lot of one of our oldest learning grounds, The Salmon River, we embraced ceremoniously as two brothers would and picked up right where we left off, with good beer, food and laughter. In the morning, fully geared to catch some steelhead we started the morning out right with a hook-up right away. The commotion was a three-pound creek chub and we laughed and joked about the many chubs which we have mistaken for "Browns of a lifetime" in the small creeks near the college we had attended. Settling down to business again and my indicator sunk once more. This time a 3-pound brown trout was on the other end and being a non-baitfish, we counted this one. That spot ended in a 1 for 1 rating for us. The second spot was more productive as I had a good size fish on for about three seconds and as I exclaimed my
disappointment, my fishing partner yelled, "There he is." The chase was on, as the fish surged down through the pockets. We followed, stumbling around on the shale, until we finally hit a deeper pocket to land the fish. We made our stand but the trip through the pockets was more than the 8-pound fluorocarbon tippet could bear and the fish broke off at our feet. Since we had the leader in reach, we counted it. 2 for 3 on the day. I went back to the run and he continued downstream. I was tying a new rig when I heard a shout. Standing in the middle of the river holding, what could only be a steelhead of 10 lbs or more, high above his head was my buddy. I gave the thumbs up and he bent down to release the fish. Bam! My spey rod bucked and the drag sung and backing disappeared into the current. Tink! The line snapped. “Wow,” I thought. We left that spot with the daily score of 4 for 7 as we landed one more skipper steelhead and had 2 other fish on briefly. We hit various other spots on the river with the highlight being a 2 pound Atlantic Salmon which jumped 6 times. We ended the day, as it began, more beer, food, and stories of the many adventures we shared and new ones we had made on our own. Day two started off in the Douglaston Salmon Run. We had taken two casts when a third in our party, who met us in our room late Saturday night, yelled, "Fish-On!!" The fish zinged his drag and came un-buttoned. A short while later, it was my turn and I rolled a fish which came to the surface shaking it's head and came loose. Finally, I set the hook hard on a small buck, which jumped and thrashed but was brought to hand. We made our way down to the Meadow and started our rotation through the pool. My buddy called me over and explained he had seen several fish porpoise beyond the reach of his single hander. I stripped 70 feet of line off my spey and fired toward the direction he was pointing. The fly landed, drifted 5 feet to sink and started swinging through the run. "That should be perfect" he said and the rod bucked to life. "I got him," I said. "Ya!" he yelled. The fish surged up and down the pool. I saw the flashing and could tell it wasn't a huge fish but it was spunky and fresh. A few moments later we had him on the bank to take a picture, which had summed up our whole fishing career. Fish spotted by one, hooked by the other, and caught by both. At the end of the day, we bid each other our traditional goodbyes which are more of the "See ya later" type and a look ahead to our adventure on the Delaware River in June.
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Re: Steelhead Adventures:
by jeremy on March 28, 2006 http://www.ineedasimplesolution.com | shaq --- nice work -- i had a similar experience with a HUGE chub this last season. I thought it was the Brookie of a lifetime... I swear the chub must have gone like 5 pounds or so... I almost killed myself trying to wade from the middle of the river to the shore - so that I would be sure to land it... and the entire time I was thinking..."oh yes, this is it! this is the brookie i have been waiting for..." i got to shore and my heart just sank.... when i say that big old nasty chub staring up at me...
great fish-tale......."see ya" |
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