Well, after a emergency family thing cutting into this weekend, keeping me off the water and forcing me to miss the swap meet we got out on the river again for an afternoon session after scouting the Skagit for sockeye with no luck. It was a nice relaxing day, the sunshine made it feel all of 70 degrees out there. The water was up, and dropping a bit as the day went on, good color, plenty of current to keep the fish moving.

Fished up and down, and then we saw a big school of smolt come down. A big ball of bait, swimming around the edge in and out of the current. With my polarized I saw a big black rocket tear into the bait, and just barely fin out of the water.

I knew that the fish were active, we had the hole all to ourselves. So we threw right above the swirl and drifted through it and BAM! Fish on!

Mad dogged us up and down the seam, took a while to see it, but it gave a flash of chrome after a bit, went down and then launched straight up in the air for a tail walk. We were hoping for chinook but this turned out to be a nice wild steelhead buck. It put up a good show, and we got it quickly in and released.

Very next cast, same presentation, same spot just drifting through the smolt school, fish on! Same story, except this one was a bit smaller, came in quick and released.

Third cast, third fish. There were three in the hole, and they all wanted to play, it was pretty darn epic. Although they were all wild fish, it was still really neat to have that happen. We haven't had action that good since last humpy season!

First fish was probably about 10, second more like 6 and the third was pushing 12. All fish were caught on chinook gear, so we didn't play them out and they left just as lively as they came in. It was really neat to see them tearing into the big ball of bait like that. Just goes to show that if you can find some active fish, steelheading can be like fishing in a barrel.

AS it was about time to leave we saw a chinook jack start to roll and jump, but we left it for the next folks as we had to get going. Although the Cascade had slowed down for a bit there, I think it will start to get better with this next batch of high water.

Nate Treat Fishing
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"Specializing in Fishing Instruction and Shore Guiding on Washington's Rivers."
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