I took part of the day off today and headed up to what I had hoped was a high and off color Cascade River. On arrival and much to my dismay it was low and crystal clear. In my experience the Cascade fishes better with some color to it but I was there so I was going fish’n. I had both my float rod and drift fishing rod with me and started with a bobber and eggs. Good choice…within a few casts I was fish-on. After the first, out of the water by a couple feet jump it was clearly a steelhead. A few more jumps and a couple long upriver runs later he was posing on the beach for pictures. Card punched and camera put away I was back in the water and as it turned out, into another fish. This time it was a 12-15 pound chinook. After releasing it, I fish the float and eggs for another 15 minutes or so and I am bobber down again. Another chinook is stripping line off the reel. I ended breaking it off trying to pull it out of the tail out. So it appears that the Cascade River chinook are partial to 1 year old humpy eggs! It was a beautiful afternoon up there and even if the fish were not corporative it would have been an incredible afternoon. I may also change my mind about the low and clear conditions.

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