Me and the brother went out to the Sky birght and early to fish Reiter. And I tell you what, I had second thoughts about posting this trip up here, because it seemed like everybody and thier uncle and thier uncle's sister and everybody inbetween in the extended family was there. It was wall to wall on the hatchery side, combat fishing. The kind where you had to wait five minutes for everyone's drift to be over with just to get a cast in. I mean, I got down there and got to make only two casts before dude elbowed in RIGHT next to me and promptly proceeded to cast over both mine and the guy next to me's line. After about ten minutes of detangling and my brother pouting on a rock in his waders, we ditched out on the hatchery side, drove three miles to end up on the otherside of the same darn hole to fish the same darn pool.

So, by the time we got to the other side and started to get a line wet, everyone was leaving, all discouraged since they'd been up since sunrise, we got a late start because we had to drop the lady off at work at five in downtown Seattle. I was a;ternating drifting a bobber and jigs and a fly, and my brother was drifting a corky sans-yarn, since we'd forgotton the shrimp and roe at home in the fridge. People were leaving left and right, which was awesome because I actually could drift a full drift for once.

My brother kept getting snagged up like every other cast, and nobody was catching fish, so after an hour he wanted to go home. I told him to stop being such a spoil sport and to get his line back in the water. See, it's been six years since he's caught a steelie, and he's been in New York sending me picture messages of 12 inch trout fly fishing and I was like oh yea? Come out here, wake up at four and try tugging on something that tugs back for once. But he was skeptical at best, especially since the experience came with a price tag of 4 am coffee and driving. So he's all in the dumps and I'm happily fishing and finally someone across the river yells fish on, we're encouraged by that.

But I knew there were fish in the river, or there were going to be, because the water level was on the rise and I saw them in the outlet to Reiter. So I was like, "five more casts dude, then we'll fish the Wallace or Sultan" and he's still grumbling and snagging away and setting the hook on every rock that felt a little not rocklike until about five minutes later he's setting the hook into another rock again and then it turns out not to be a rock. And he's all quietlike and skeptical and asks quizically "fish on?" And then you hear the wonderful scream of the reel, the pole's doubled over and the fish starts tap dancing down the river, and he whoomps "FISH ON! FISH ON!"

Yea, that's the moment you wait all spring long for, the first summer run steelhead of the season. So at first I was like yea yea whatever, but then the whole reel screaming and tap dancing startled me and I scramble out of the way so he can play it. Of course he was using 8 lbs. test and six pound leader, so the fight took 10 minutes, every time the bank would get close the fish was having none of it, tearing out into the river like she's seen her own death. People are yelling across the river "it's a native! Gotta throw it back!" but light tackle can make a hatchery fish seem like a native, that is until you've caught a native on light tackle of course.

So after scrambling for a bit and losing a couple jigs in the brink in the scuffle, we got the fish landed, and beautiful bright hatchery hen, 7lbs. and 26.5 in. And I turned to my brother and asked, "You still wanna go home?"

Yet alas, a half hour later, after a couple more fish on on the other side, nil for us (we'd run out of corkies and jigs, I was tossing a Kastmaster at this point) the alarm went off telling us Nick had to go to work. Good times.

Needless to say, he caught it on a peach "baby" corky, the tiny ones, with no yarn and about a foot and a half of leader. But the moral of this story is please be polite and cast carefully when there are so many people. The trip reminded me of why I don't fish the Cowlitz anymore, besides the fact that I don't live there anymore. If you're headed out and you see us, watch your line and leave some space. We're all in it for fun, not fistfights and line tug of war.

All in all, supurb day of fishing, couldn't have asked for a better way to spend three hours of the have no reason to be up this early morning before morning day. Good times and tight lines!

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