As always a very warm welcome on a late Monday or early Tuesday morning to The Journal on Fishing With Rod your top fishing web page on the net for fishing information.
Finally with a bit of frost in the dying days of Fall with Winter only a couple of days away, time once again to try for an early run Winter steelhead. As I turn the the Leaf Mobile towards the Vedder I am certainly hoping for improved water conditions. The last while the mild and rainy weather has made the lower river in my mind unfishable as visibility ran from a few inches to maybe a foot. Then there is the clay that will slide into the river at anytime creating less than ideal conditions.
As I swing by McDonalds I see Dave there so I drop in and give him a small piece of a fin clip so he can get a DNA reading from one of the two sockeye I caught last Friday in a Fraser backwater while fishing for cutthroat. As I reported they both had grabbed the 3 single eggs I was using.
Rodney has yet to post the pictures so I will ask him to do so here so you can see them, a real oddity to catch them so late in the season I think.
I reach the river just after daylight and quickly make my way to the river and are fairly pleased to see visibility now approaching 18 inches, fishable.
As I make my way to the first run I see the water is up from my first two trips nearly 2 weeks ago. The only tracks I see are some made by a bruin, most likely feeding on some of the rotting chum last night. I see 2 other anglers working some runs above me, none below.
I quickly work through numerous runs. I find in most cases if a steelhead is there he will take on the first few casts, that is if you get it in front of him. In a lot of cases it is the sweepers that will stay at a run and cast and cast but that is when the fish hole up in traps like they did last year, not my cup of tea. I am please to see so many runs mostly small spots that I like to fish especially in the colored conditions we are and will be faced with this season. It seems we will faced with this conditions a lot this season in the Lower river anywhere, where I like to fish. I just do not like the upper don't ask me why as I really do not know why although when I started fishing steelhead years ago, with The Master we just did not go up there, not necessary as we always did well in the Lower.
I work down a far as I want to go and start fishing back up stream from where I came.
First cast into a small slot, Maple Leaf Drennan goes side ways a bit, thinking it is bottom I just pick up, bad idea as a fish comes to the top, I see its back only, for only a split second darn was it an ironhead a chum or a coho. I would never know as it has easily tossed the hook, the roe bags of course is torn up with the contents gone. I affix another fresh bag now very excited with the though of what may be lurching in the silt laden waters below. Of course I am still wondering what I had on for the fraction of a second.
I throw a few more casts nothing happens, no second chance to see what has got the blood pumping.
I move to another similar slot, leaving the other spot to rest a bit before I return to it. On the first cast into this spot Maple Leaf Drennan dips again, this time I am on it, solid but it is a snag or my weight has caught under a boulder. I try to free it but the line breaks, the 20 gram Maple Leaf Drennan floats free, I give chase, I have one chance to retrieve it but I miss on the lunge and it floats away to make someone who finds it very happy. My poor drennan that I had put on this morning with the Leafs logo freshly taped on only lasted a few hours and did not get a chance to enjoy battling a steelhead.
I retie, putting on a 28 gram drennan sans the logo. I return to the spot of the action but nothing happens. Snow starts to fall and I am getting hungry for lunch so head back to the Leaf Mobile for some munchies. On the way back to the Leaf Mobile I spot something red, in a fresh log jam pushed there by the recent high water event, I go over to check it out. I am pleased to see it is a 28 gram drennan, sure did not take long to replace the lost one.
Back at the LM while having lunch Lew and Terry stop for a chin wag. They are checking the garbage situation along the river as the CVRCC is meeting with the City of Chilliwack, Fraser Valley Regional District and the City of Abbotsford today to plan our 4 cleanup dates for 2007. We will have them for you tomorrow, hope as many of you will attend some of them this year as it is because of the volunteers like you that the Adopt a River program has been a success the last 4 years.
With lunch complete I have a hour to fish before the LM goes in for her Christmas present, a check up from Dr. Ernie and Dr. Chad.
The time goes quickly, it always does when you have to get somewhere. However nothing more happens so back to the LM. On the way back I bend down and to pick up a beer tin. Beside it I see a small change purse, it feels heavy, gold in it maybe.
No it is full of pennies, mostly American. When I count them I find 41 and one dime, not enough for a coffee but hey maybe that 41 st penny will be a lucky omen for what will happen today. It is already Tuesday morning so I will be back at the river in exactly 7 hours. I feel lucky already, just being able once again to get out on the river in an attempt seek out a steelhead, maybe for the one that was or wasn't, we will never know but today I will be ready, you can count your pennies on that.
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Topic: Was It Or Wasn't It, The Journal For December 18 (Read 8192 times)