First decent day of the year. After a disappointing two trips earlier this year I headed out to my favourite flow at first light. I was pleased to see as I pulled up that there was no other fishermen around. Taking my time I headed down to the Make Belief free pool that produced a hit on my previous trip. I started with my favourite gooey bob with a tuft of yarn to no avail. Also tried jigs, spinner blades, jensen eggs with no success. After 20 minutes I decided to pack it up and tried the lower portion to see if any steelhead moved in with the morning high tide. My first cast resulted in a snag and a broken leader. I rerigged and baited my hook with a piece of bright red coho roe. On the first cast right where I had lost a leader a few moments earlier my float hesitated. I was reluctant to set the hook thinking that I had hook the same snag again. I gently lifted my rod in the hope of dislodging the "snag". As I did so I saw a big flash in the water. It was a steelhead ! After a furious 5 minute fight in which the steelhead jumped several times I managed to lead the steelhead into a back eddy where I landed it. It was a hatchery steelhead about 10 lbs. Unfortunately, the retention of hatchery steelhead is not allowed in this system. I released it. Quite a morning and best of all, nobody was around.
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Topic: First of the Year January 14th (Read 6122 times)