Well today was the first time I would finally get my act together and get out on the river, for my first steelhead trip of the season. My day started with a quick breakfast at Cookies Grill as I wanted to go to the 10:30 meeting put on by the City of Chilliwack regarding the recent flooding we have experienced here in the Valley. I am sure you have seen all the coverage on TV the last week. Personally we have been fortunate with not a drop in our basement while many of our low lying neighbor's houses have suffered greatly.
Some people have complained that some of the fault was caused by FOC not allowing some ditches to be cleaned out because of fish stocks in them. I know the City does lot of ditch cleaning every year so I am not sure if some ditches are not done because of this. I believe a lot of the problem was caused by the pumps along the Vedder not being able to handle the volume of water caused by the frozen ground combined by the rapid snow melt and close to 7 inches of rain we had in a short period of time.
They can not blame the ditches for all the slides we have had in the Chilliwack River Valley and else where, I believe there is 11 in the Chilliwack Valley. This is in part due to the development on some of the hillside slopes that have denuded some of the forest areas.
Sorry I digress. After the meeting I stopped at Lickman and I thought the river was fishable but I phoned the Master to see what he thought and if he was out. He was, although he had no success yet he said “I have caught them in worse conditions”.
I headed home and had to thaw some roe in the microwave while my wife was not looking, I gave the package 23 second and then another 23 to complete the thawing process.
I had never done this before but it seemed OK. Anyway I had no time to wait for the roe to thaw on its own.
I quickly tied up six larger than usual roe bags, from the micro cured Chinook roe and flipped them into a small jar dusting them lightly with Mule Train Borax.
I then gathered up all the gear and saw I still had the terminal tackle on from the last coho trip on the rod, well over 2 months ago. It looked OK but the wool on the #2 Gammy looked a little ratty. As it was nearing 2:30 no time to change it and anyway this was to be an exploring trip more than anything else, to check out the recent high water that will have formed new hot spots. This is always the fun part to steelhead fishing, finding those new spots that are holding fish.
I finally reach the river with about 2 hours of fishing time left. I figure the visibility is 2 feet at the most so I will just be fishing fairly shallow areas and I see they are several of them in the area I am fishing. The roe bags looked yummy; I hope maybe a steelhead will agree with me.
I could feel the steelhead fever once again even though it was a late start in the season for me but I remember I got my first one last season on January 3. Besides the best is still ahead, over 3 months to go and anyway I should not burn out come March. I also remember we start the 2009 brood capture program on January the 15th so I better get warmed up for that too.
I move through the runs quickly and touch base with Nick again, he is on his way home now, he reports nothing for him “but I saw one jump 3 times, a coho” he chuckles as he knows that would have got me going. He also told me he has 5 to the beach out of 9 hooked so far this season and there was a good push of fish before the high water came. This gave me a glimmer of hope. I tell him if I hook a fish I will call him right away even before I land it, what a crazy idea, I guess I thought I had little chance of that happening.
I have about 45 minutes left to fish and decide to continue my journey upstream and hope I could re cross the river so I would not not have to retrace my steps back to where I had first crossed. I have the river to myself and I only see one other set of fresh foot steps. Not to worry anyway as the fish will be on the move with such a color in the water.
As I work the water 2 juvenile eagles watch me as I pass by them, full I guess of a days feeding on the last remnants of the spawned out chum carcasses that have not been washed away by the high water.
I see I can indeed cross at a spot where I can go no further but I spot a nice looking little slick, maybe a couple of hundred yards from where I will cross to start my trek back to the Leaf Mobile. Actually with only about 15 minutes of fishing time left I, for a moment thought of giving up but no I tell myself, I should give it a try as you never know what it could yield.
I have to cross a long riffle to reach the spot but it is easy wading, it feels good to be out on the flow again, to feel the fresh air in one's lungs, to hear the sounds of the rushing water passing by and push of the water against one's waders as I make my way to the small run.
When I reach the spot, the last I was going to fish I see it is around 3 feet deep, a nice resting spot for any fish working its way upstream with plenty of cover above it in the silty colored water.
I make a few casts as darkness starts to fall around me, the last of the walkers are making their way along the Rotary Trail back to their vehicles and back to their residences for supper. I too think of some nice venison steaks being prepared at home. I am not really concentrating very well on my casts, just going through the motions.
Suddenly the Maple Leaf DNE float dips I struck half heartily and for some reason I say out loud "there's one”. As I pull I see a small green cedar limb appears on the surface, darn that is what it was but all of a sudden I feel something pulling and then splashing, no it was not a lively limb fish as the green in front of my eyes had now turned to silver.
Before I could get excited I felt slack, gone, no wonder as I had not set the hook properly, even the limb was gone. I am now dejected after a couple of seconds of an adrenalin rush even thought the fish did not look very big. Maybe it was just a late running coho salmon or even a dolly varden.
My roe bag is a little worse for wear but I make a few more casts with it. I then decide to put on a fresh one as it may be an aggressive fish and a new bait may temp the fish to try again. On about the third cast the Maple Leaf DNE dips again, this time I am ready, my strike connects, the fish is on and starts to thrash on top of the water now heading to the middle of the river. It once again does not feel big but it sure feels good to have a fish on again. I move downstream with the fish and work it towards the shore. It starts to swim back to from whence it came. Then it decides downstream is a better route and off it goes taking a fair amount of line at the same time as it is aided by the strong current, I follow in hot pursuit.
As I start to wade across the riffle I remember I said I would phone Nick if I hooked one and I am good to my word even though it was a crazy thing to do. He picks up on the second ring and I tell him I am into one," how big” he asks. I tell him fairly small buts it a steelhead and that what counts.
I tell him I have a bit of slack in the line and I will get back to him when and if I land it.
The fish fights very well for it size but I finally see it is indeed a steelhead, a very bright doe a little over 7 pounds. The next question, is it a hatchery and should I retain it? As I get it near the shore I see it is indeed a hatchery and as we have not had fresh fish for a while it becomes the first mark on my license. It is now nearly dark just light enough to see where to write in the needed information.
As I wade the side stream and back to the trail I try to remember if this was the first time I had hooked and landed a steelhead on my first trip of the season. I think it was and under the conditions I was faced with I think luck had a lot to do with it today. However we must all remember you can not catch them staying at home and it will be hard to keep me away from pursuing that elusive steelhead in the days ahead.
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Topic: Chilliwack River, January 12th 2009: My First Steelhead Trip in 2009 (Read 3596 times)