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My first trip designated for winter fish proved to be successful, depending on what success means to different people.
To me, relative solitude and a day on the water is a success in itself. Catching is desired, but not always occurring in the ways you expect, and sometimes not at all.
The way in and out isn't always pretty either. Thick waders proved to be useful for barreling through masses of thorn-brush. My exposed hands and face disagreed with my choice to explore and were cut apart by the time I emerged to my destination.
Where the road ends, a new one begins, and I am the planner, architect, laborer, and driver. My only tool, a stiff beaver-chewed bludgeon, made short work of invasive prickle-bushes and hollowed a still-too-small path through the saturated Northwest understory for me to clamber through. Game trails lead me the rest of the way, and soon grey cobble lay beneath my feat as icy-blue water rushed around me, stained from the recent rains.
My locale looked good, but the holding water yielded nothing. Nothing in the bucket but a bright 12" jack coho. I moved to focus on the faster water, and on an edge of current the a larger taker struck and flew out of the shallow water.
Beautiful red stripe, golden-green back, and heavily spotted. A large resident rainbow of 22-23", a more common sight in the higher reaches of the sky. It's at this size and age that the full coloration of the rainbow trout is visible, one of the most beautiful fish in our waters.
He went back to his riffle. He might go on to spawn with a steelhead later this spring. In my opinion, these guys should be on strict catch-and-release.
Probing further, a couple bulldogs of 18" and 20" took a liking to what I offered. One refused to stay in the net and pose for me, so I settled for a mental snapshot as he stormed back off to his swift-moving home to resume sucking up morsels. The other cooperated and swam away to join her man back in the river only after I captured her beautiful red spots photographically.
These guys should be protected as well. As our world heats up, this species may become fragile.
The final act of the day was to drift an offering along the bottom on ultralight gear and hook every whitefish and their mother, father, brother, sister, and first, second and third cousins, to which I said "that's fantastic." They were on the slower current seams, probably feeding on salmon eggs drifting down.
Speaking of salmon, even gross looking, spawning-phase chum salmon can be aggressive. To my horror, a moldy "green" dude ate. No, he wasn't going to the dentist. He ATE it. Ultralight outfit remember, and zzzzzzzziiiiiiinnnnnngggggggggg goes my drag. Thankfully he somehow unhooked himself in the shallow water and I didn't have to surgically remove my hook from his throat while simultaneously trying not to vomit.
I also caught a steelhead. A 10-inch smolt, but it counts, right? Right?
I'll have to wait to etch my first tally in the winter fish department for later.
Oh, and I stopped by the Wallace for a minute to see what was going on. Under the bridge looked more like a children's dentist office than a river, with the practicians trying to floss the reluctant boys and girls. Okay, I know that the salmon probably should floss their teeth to better impress some mates during spawning, but they get along fine without it. They don't need to be flossed and y'all don't need to be flossing.
Ironically, some of the flossers actually need to visit a real flosser and get flossed themselves. C'mon, man.
I asked one guy how he was fishing and he had no problem telling me he was attempting to snag fish. He then told me he didn't know it was illegal. I've heard it a million times.
Let's all hope for a good winter. Good luck out there everyone!
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