Back in the 1960s when I belonged to the Kingfisher club, we had a yearly trophy for the largest fish. I kept pretty good records of where the winning fish came from. Because most club members mainly fished the Lower Mainland rivers, that is where most of the fish were caught. The Kingfishers were a pretty gung-ho bunch of anglers and they took pride in catching their limit on a regular basis. I don't ever recall a winning steelhead over 20 pounds being caught in the Chehalis or Vedder rivers, but many were taken of that size on the Squamish. I remember George Tickell taking two 20+ pounders on the Cheakemus in one day, and his brother Dave got another.
A couple of years the largest steelhead didn't exceed 15 pounds.
However, it wasn't until some members started going north to the Kispiox that the real bruisers started winning the trophy. After that the trophy always went to one of the northern rivers... with two exceptions. One member got a 27 pound buck from the Salmon River on Vancouver Island, and dearly departed legend, Bruce Gerhart got the only 30 pound steelhead to ever be verified on Vancouver Island. It was taken on the Gold River with the assistance of George Super.
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Topic: Biggest Steelhead (Read 18713 times)