The Past Few Weeks

The past few weeks have been all over the map. We had some nice cool weather at the beginning of the month but then had about 10 days of record highs with some days creeping into the low to mid 80's! Those temps made bird hunting tough and threw a little curveball into the thoughts of the anadromous fish. Still, like always, we made the best of some tough conditions and just pressed on.
On the 6th Jeff and I got out for a few hours after work to probe for steelhead. The water was pitifully low and clear and we knew things would be difficult. I got 2 decent trout, a rainbow and a brown, within my first 10 drifts fishing a small peach glo bug at the head of a deep run. That proved to be the only action we would have until right around dusk. I spent some time playing with the camera....not a bad way to spend an evening.




Towards the end of the evening, strategically positioned in one of the best steelhead producing runs in the river, Jeff had a bobber down at the head of the run. When he set the hook the rod doubled over and the hooks held just long enough to see a bright chrome fish come up just under the surface thrashing his head side to side. Right as Jeff yelled "STEELHEAD!" the hook popped and sent his whole rig flying right into his face. It had only lasted a second, but it was exactly what we had come for. We tried for a few more minutes but soon it was too dark to see anything and it was time to make the long trek back to the truck. It's exciting to see fish around this early when last year we didn't have fishable numbers until November. Now, if we could just get some rain and colder temps (which is suppose to start tonight) we should be in great shape for a solid fall of fishing.
A few days later we headed north a little ways to try to find whatever fish would eat an egg. Although the day was beautiful it made for really rough conditions on the river. Salmon were around in absurd numbers and literally clogged every fishable area in the river. When you looked into the clear water flowing by you could see a egg parade tumbling down the river bottom. I've never seen anything like it, and it immediately solidified in my mind that fishing eggs was a waste of time. I took some pictures instead.




We also got out for two floats recently. The first was on some smallmouth water we fished alot over the summer. we fished tons of water with all the proven flies and moved 2 fish, which came on the first 5 casts of the day (1 smallie and 1 small pike). After that we never saw another fish. It was heartbreaking but informative....we believe alot of the fish migrated to the lower part of the river which is much deeper.
The last float was on some trophy trout water as part of our 3 day trip to the NE part of the state. Low clear water made things really tough. I was able to stick 2 smaller browns, neither over 14 inches, and Justin and Jeff each landed a planter rainbow. I turned 1 very solid fish and pricked a second fish that looked to be in the upper teens but that was it for the day. As is the case all over the state....we need rain to get the fishing back on track. Luckily, we had good beer and good company.

As tough as the fishing has been, the bird hunting has been fantastic. I'll follow up with that report shortly........