The fall steelhead run is one of my favorite times of year. The salmon begin to die in the rivers and streams and big steelhead come in from the lakes into the rivers to feast on the salmons eggs. These fish are not only big, but dime bright and red hot. Actually, red hot would be an understatement regarding the steelhead that come in from the lakes in the fall months. When Jeremy got news that the rivers were loaded with steelhead that were hunting down the salmon eggs, we made the call to drive west and forget about other plans. When we arrived at the river going on no sleep and high anticipation, we found it to be quite slow…..infact very slow! We fished all types of water, fast, slow, deep, shallow, muddy, clear, but we did not find the illusive fall steelhead. We then made the call to journey to a different section of the river. We arrived and started nymphing our favorite runs with our yellow egg patterns. To our disbelief, we couldn’t buy a fish. That was when we decided to fish the pocket water and in our cases water that is most often times regarded as insignificant and water that we rarely fish while fishing for steelhead. We immediately started hooking fish, hooking being the keyword here. These fish were red hot. Red hot as in you are not going to slow them down! I was in disbelief as Jeremy and I began hooking fish in very shallow water and getting smoked most of the time! Jeremy sealed the deal first by landing the first giant chromer of the day. Then another, then another. I was amazed by the superior landing skills while at the same time I was getting destroyed by every steelhead that I hooked. Towards the twilight hour, wise cracks were made about how I had not sealed the deal. I had in a way given up myself. Towards the last drift of the day, I focused on my indicator. A big rock in the water paved way for a nice eddy with good deep hole inside. I made a cast to the far side of the eddy and dead drifted the nymph rig. The indicator danced mid drift and the bright steelhead did too, in the air! I was loving every minute of the battle and planned on landing the hot steelhead even if he intended to make my reel scream and send me running down river after him. After many screaming runs and memorable jumps, I had landed a steelhead. Stay tuned for more hot chrome.
Nice job guys! Landing chrome is defanetely harder than hooking them!!
Nice work dawgs!
Glad I had my shades on, those are bright!
Too hot to handle…I bet…
Like playing “Hot Potatoe” with Scud Missiles!
Way to Detonate!
I have been on the chrome line for the last couple weeks hearing the flows, fish count etc..I am green with envy right now. all my buds crushing chrome and I am here in the rockies wondering if this was a good move…..see you in Nov.
jmac
beautiful fresh weapons of steel… good to see you on the fresh water page…
Alex
In the Steel world, we all know days like the past couple don’t come along very often. Glad you were able to hop in the Wolly Buger and capitalize on it! A-town you are a machine out there. It was only two years ago that you landed your first and now you are out there slaying like a well seasoned veteran. Your apptitude is outstanding.
Whip, what a trip! I was so glad to see everyone get chrome! It’s funny, the day before i couldn’t buy a fish and j-bones had the red hot stick, then the day with you the tables turned! well maybe not because everyone was laced up bigtime! I guess you can’t have it all the time just like you said. It seems as though i always need 1 full day to adjust to the steelhead game…….good luck out there and what a killer time!
hey alex, great to hear from you! Ed tells me that your fishing season is just beginning and that you have some serious crushing to do……hope to be seeing some giant sea run browns and rainbows from the southern hemisphere……good luck bro!
Austin,
very impressed with your skills with the hot chrome. it was great to meet whip and krane and get schooled by the whole crew. i got em yesterday though-solo chrome. wish you were there. -Ed
Nice Ed, I was wondering how you were doing all day. I knew you would sniff ’em out. Congrats.
Those chromers are the real deal. Glad you had your fix for now…cause we know it won’t last. They have some serious attitude. Congrats………….