Well, with my recent luck last week fishing Salmon Creek down by klineline I decided to fish it again this morning. The water level had risen swiftly, but dropped enough to cause fish to stage in holding water. I started out fishing above Klineline Pond with a bobber and pink/white marabou jig, hitting some of the holding water that I had gotten my last two steelhead in. Water conditions were a little high, but water color was good, not too murky. I fished three different runs all in short distance from each other with nothing to show for it, so I decided to try a different tactic and move downstream and cover as much water as possible. About a half hour later, after drifting through several likely holding sections, I had a nice buck steelhead grab my jig, yanking my float under the water. I assumed that this fish was either very smart or he had been hooked before because he immediatly went for cover among a log jam. Thankfully though, I was able to stop him from burying himself in the sunken timber and after a five minute battle, landed a nice seven and a half pound hatchery winter Steelhead, much like the one I had caught a week prior. I dispatched the fish and continued on downstream, hitting some more good stretches of water, but not getting anymore strikes. I fished probably a good mile below Klineline Pond, but didn't hook into anything else, although I will say that there are many good spots (holding water and runs) if you are willing to explore. My theory is that because it is quite late in the season for upstream migration that there are just not very many steelhead in the system anymore and the ones that I am seeing and connecting with are some late stragglers. The four steelhead that I have connected with in the past two and a half weeks are not in bad shape at all and their meat is still good quality. If you want to try to fish Salmon Creek, my suggestion is to do what I did and start up above Klineline and work your way downstream, hitting likely looking spots. Bobber and Jigs have worked very well for me with a bit of shrimp scent as they allow me to cover good spots and not get caught on the many snags and root wads. I prefer using a 1/4 ounce pink and white marabou jig with some Krystal Flash for added attraction and have been adding a small amount of Mikes Shrimp Oil at the heead of the jig. When you come to a good spot, fish every bit of the hole, because even though the holes are small, steelhead spook easily and will move around a lot. I like to wear waders so that I can cross to either side of the creek to effectively fish one side or the other. I've run into a few other steelhead fisherman and each one has been tossing hardware with no reported fish caught except for some Cutthroat Trout. I believe that fishing jigs is the mose effective way to catch these fish as they won't spook them like lures will and jigs are something that not many of these fish have see. Anyways tight lines and hopefully I'll see you down on the water here soon.

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