After checking the river this morning and a visit with The Master at the river we saw there was about 18 inches of visibility, "plenty fishable" Nick says. As I could not go out to later in the day to fish I would have to leave the river to Nick. The river was void of many anglers, especially for a weekend. After leaving Nick and having not too much time before going to watch one of the grandson's skating I went for a short walk to check out some other parts of the river to see if the recent high water had made many changes to the runs I had been fishing. Of course the high water always changes the runs some what and creates some nice side streams that I like to fish, that is if you can access them.
With the grandfather duties complete I finally made the river with less than 2 hours to fish. When I look upstream and down I only see one angler below me, the visibility has improved some, around 2 feet now. I have several runs I wish to fish and move quickly through them so I can cover as many holding spots as possible. I am using roe bags again today but they temp no fish. I decide with about 20 minutes of time left to try an area I had not fished this year. On the way to the area I meet up Dick and his wife who are out for a walk. We are going the same direction so we walk along together chatting fishing of course, he like me has no steelhead to the beach. As we near where they will be heading in another direction Dick says, "There is a nice slick over there". I reply "yes I noticed it on my earlier walk today". As I slip over the bank Dick says, "I will watch you for a couple off casts". A couple casts yield nothing and Dick and his wife wave goodbye. I am just about ready to move to the last run I plan to fish and then the Maple Leaf Drennan is down, completely submerged. For once I am on the take and set the hook firmly. At the same instant as I make contact with that solid feeling a steelhead is doing a somersault, completely out of the water. I am just starting to think, wow that is a nice one when for the fourth time this year my hook flies free, darn not again. Hoping it may be a greedy one and give me another chance but no, the fish has learnt its lesson well and I donot get a second opportunity at the 10 or so pounder.
With my heart still pounding from the brief bit of excitement I leave the new hot spot, Dick's Slick to try one final run before dark. By the time I reach it darkness has pretty well closed in on me and the river, I have only time for a few casts before I call it a day. As I trudge back to the Leaf Mobile I still have the vision of that steelhead clearing the water and thinking when will my plus minus average gain a plus, maybe tomorrow?