A Fine Winter Day

Those of us who brave mother nature during her most inhospitable time of year have been called crazy, masochistic, and suicidal. Frozen fingers, icy rod guides, and alot of hours searching for a ghost like fish are all part of the quest. To those who don't share the sickness this seems like a waste of time. We know better, however, and every cast we can envision a silver bullet emerging from the inky black waters of the north woods. Last weekend I spent a few hours out on Saturday and Sunday and the wind chill was below zero both days. The rivers were vacant of other fisherman and for good reason.....the rod was icing so bad I could hardly cast. My beard was frozen and eyes watered and froze on my face. I finally gave up and already was looking forward to this weekend when temperatures would be a little more forgiving.
Yesterday was not warm by any means with a high around 28, but the week of warmer weather had the water temperature around 38 degrees and the fish were active. It was the kind of day we fish all winter for. Our first stop was probably the best winter run in the upper river. Despite multiple passes through with 3 guys and over a dozen flies donated to the wood we couldn't buy a hookup. Moving downriver we came to another favorite deep pinch and right away Jeff hooked and lost a nice sized brown. He then promptly hooked and lost 2 more big fish in a row. The first was a steelhead.....but the second is the one that will have us wondering for a long time. It looked like a BIG lake run brown but we will never know. Jeff was obviously pissed at loosing 3 straight fish and joked that I would probably hook one next and land it quickly. I didn't want to disappoint him, so a few casts later I hooked a bright fish and got it to hand without too much trouble.

The purple sheen of a winter hen is perhaps my favorite coloration of any fish I catch....

Not to be outdone, Jeff made 1 cast after landing that fish for me and came tight on another steelhead. This time we were able to give chase downriver and make use of Dad's net. This buck shows the male coloration in the winter.

We went back up to see if any other fish in that run wanted to play but that was it. We moved downstream aways to another run that we caught some fish from back in January. Dad went through first with his CND rig and just couldn't buy a fish. Thinking that he would have caught whatever was in there I fished it hard and after several minutes I had a very brief hookup with a steelhead at the tail of the pool. I roll casted back out and just a little farther downstream I hooked another fish, this time getting a good hookset. I got one good jump and a couple hard runs before walking her downstream 50 yards and Jeff scooping her up in the net.

Goin back....

That fish made my day and I pretty much just played around with the camera for the rest of the day. Took a few cool shots as we fished our way downstream back to the truck.



Not far from the truck Jeff caught two small trout in a row out of a fast chute and then dad broke his skunk for the day with a nice 14 inch brown. It scooted off before I could grab a pic. Thinking that was going to be it for the day dad moved downstream to a pool I have never fished for steelhead but he has done well in at other times of the year. Jeff and I were BS'ing up river when I heard him yell "FISH!" I looked downstream to see a fish cartwheeling out of the water. Jeff hopped on the video camera and I played net man. Dad did a nice job keeping this spunky hen out of the wood and soon I had her in the net.

Father and son shot to close out an awesome winter day....

Winter steelhead...ain't nothing else like em. Should be excellent for the next month or so and then we will be switching gears to some big brown trout. Be good.........