Sunday October 29, 2006, Salmon River NY. Air Temp: 36, Wind: 25-35 with gust to 55 mph, Water: 2900 cfs (basically over the banks).Our wives called us crazy to go steelheading given the forecast. Any reasonable person would be home, but then again steelheaders are not reasonable people. After all we had a sound plan of attack. Hit the river in some sheltered areas and enjoy the solitude. The only crazy person we saw was the guy launching a drift boat in Altmar as we drove past. We knew there were lots of steelhead in the river and that fact was the most pertinent part of the plan. The urge to connect with those hot fall steelhead sealed the deal. As hooking into these fish is like hooking onto a live power line, all hell breaks loose. When we arrived at the river the wind was brutal as was the ever changing combination of rain, sleet, pea size hail and snow. We quickly settled into our fishing routine searching for steelhead. After fishing the most sheltered areas to no avail, we ventured out to less sheltered areas and there we found our quarry. The morning provided the most action with each of us hooking multiple steel, but each being fortunate enough to land a steelhead and Shaq also landed a nice brown. The afternoon was more challenging as we really had to work in order to pick at the fish. Over the course of the day each of us got abused by multiple steelhead. They either broke us off or took off downstream in the heavy current. With little slack water and no way to walk down the river banks in places we could only hope for the best and given the conditions the steel ate us up and we loved it. In the final analysis we were in steelhead heaven.
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- The Art Of Escape
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can you say wind!!!!! thats deffinatly the tipical steelheading weather. nice brown by the way good color.
Wow, what a hard wind conditions!!!
These Steelhead are really great fighters.
Congrats guys.
“This” is a Brown one.
I think what you are asking is that a brown steelhead. If that is your question no it is a lake run brown trout. They run in the fall as do the steelhead, but don’t fight nearly as hard as the steelhead, but are fun to catch anyways.
it wasn’t that, it’s just that I don’t know the right english way to tell that it’s “Realy a nice and big one brown trout, THE brown trout”
🙂
I remember a couple of days like that on those rivers and cold doesn’t even start to explain. I am surprised your fingers would run the camera. Great fish and well done video, congrats.
Wow!
that is 36 degrees!!! That is the higest temp of our British summer!!!!!!
Glad to see you were able to get out and find some fish in the poor conditons. Hooking a fish in that high water is a task in itself, landing it is another. Nicely done.
loved this story … the attraction for me about steelheading .. is the satisfaction felt when all of the forces working against me are overcome … and any steelhead fly fisherman knows that there are more forces working against him than for him .. and this fish-tale video is the proof … but wrh and shaq still got it done … and that day will probably be remembered more than other succesful days with bluebird skies and nice temperatures and all that … steelheading is not just about the end result .. it is, for me, about the end result in relation to the dynamics of everything that was part of getting there ..(long drive, moving spot, tromping miles of river, hooking and dropping fish, cold, ice in guides, high water, snow, low water…etc…) the satisfaction of the end result is directly proportional to the totality and compelxity of the labor it took to get there … so, these two fish are amazing fish!!!! well done.
Nice job guys. Way to hang in there and seal the deal when the deck is stacked against you.