headed up to the thompson to fish for some elusive thompson river steelhead. i have been fishing this river for many years and always enjoy getting buddies into their first steelhead. this trip was no different....ok no self hooked steelhead for the steelhead virgin buddies but.... very cold, slippery rocks, windy,...did i say very very cold, frozen fingers and faces, and at times extremely bad road conditions.
fished hard all day on saturday but had no luck. we hooked into many big rainbows but no steelies.
saw some spey fishermen along the river who were hooked into some fish but for our group of five guys, not one steelhead touched until the very last run. after a couple of buddies pass over an area i know holds steelhead, i made a few casts and bam...big steelhead. when fishing for these thompson river steelies, you don't always suspect that some of the light bites are large steelhead. when you set a hook thinking its a trout and a 18+ lber starts jumping it really gets your heart pumping. well this one was no different. light tug on the line followed by 6 leaps into the air and 6 minutes of hard fighting. (video footage for proof). the end result is a beautfiul large chrome thompson steelie doe. caught on a drift set up, large blue corkie with pink wool and a cocktail shrimp wrapped on the hook so that it doesn't come off (when i say wrapped i mean wrapped. when its that cold out you don't want to be consistently putting bait on your hook and exposing your fingers to the cold air!)
Here is the picture of the first steelhead i hooked.
nothing else on the first day. the second day we got up early and hit the water for sun up. after hitting many runs, all we could hook up were large rainbows. when i say large i mean 5 lbers-2 lbers. our group of five landed about 20 for the weekend plus a few ugly suckers.
we end up hitting many holes and again. a couple of holes a steelhead surfaced but couldn't entice it to bite. in my experience on this river, usually when they show themselves they are aggressive and you can hook them but this time they didn't. to me this means you have to get the hook right in front of their faces for them to bite. i call this lock jaw. all day we don't get a sniff so we decide to hit one last hole on the way out. after standing stationary (which we don't normally do but its really cold and windy) the five of us are starting to realize that we may not hook into another steelie when bam...i hook one. interestingly i fished in the same area for about one hour before the steelie hits. (proving my lock jaw theory). i pass my rod on to my buddy who then proceeds to fight his first steelie. this one is a big one and it surfaces a couple of times and then runs. buddy who is not used to fighting large strong fish muscles it too much and pops the hook out of the mouth. oh well ....thats fishing. i go back to the same spot make ten more casts and then bam... another steelhead. this time i pass it to my buddy and again and he lands this one. another nice chrome steelie. we get a pic and i move down river to a new spot. one of my other buddies moves to close to where i was standing and bam he hits one and loses it and then hits another ten casts later which snaps off his hook.
in the end, we manage to hook four and land one. for the weekend our ratio is hooking five and landing two. however, even those new to the this fishery all caught some nice big rainbows which makes it fun.
lessons i have learned fishing this river...
* yes its really cold (so cold it hurts) and windy
* keep your line in the water (have your gear ready and don't spend a lot of time tying up gear!...lose line...tie a new one on and fish)
* doesn't really matter what you use the fish are really aggressive...however, when fishing is tough they are there you just sometimes have to put the bait right in front of their faces
* ghost shrimp do work the best in my opinion, but really for all the work it takes to get this bait cocktail shrimp works just as well.
* always take a spare reel. it can be so cold that you can't expose your fingers so take a spare reel for those birds nests.
* always let your line travel as close to the shore as possible. out of the three steelhead i hooked this weekend, all three were hooked right along the shoreline.
* don't assume those light trout bites are always trout. set the hook like its a steelhead everytime!
* always check your line to make sure your leaders is not frayed. you don't want to finally hook a big one only to lose it to a weak leader or dull hook.
anyways, i will post this report and then follow up with some more pics later. hopefully my pics work this time.
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Topic: Thompson River, December 5th & 6th 2009: Another successful steelheading trip (Read 9305 times)