I am still beating myself up for not getting on the river sooner today, Barb said she had a lot of stuff to do, and if I wanted to go fishing I would have to go without her, anyway after doing a few chores to justify going fishing I finally get the boat hooked up, and head for the boat launch.

Launched the boat at Couse Creek, put the boat on plane and head downriver to a good stretch of holding water on the Idaho side. River temp. is 36.2*, ambient temp. 48*, overcast, no wind, what a great day to be on the river in Hell's Canyon. This is going to be like fishing a wilderness area today, not another boat in sight, saw one boat going upriver when launching, otherwise it's totally deserted.

Pulled the boat off plane and pointed the bow upriver, started the Honda, today I'm going to try a Magnum Fat Fish, in candy apple red, using a 6" dropper from the belly hook position baited with dyed, marinated shrimp. Get the line in the water and start a slow backtroll, look at my watch and it is 3:30pm, already getting dim in the canyon, well maybe I will get lucky, have about a hour to fish.

All the conditions look perfect, the plug is hitting bottom pretty regular, I'm in 6' to 10' depth, the rod is showing good action, I cover almost the entire drift, traversing back and forth trying to find that elusive Steelhead. I am at the tailout of the drift when my rod gets a couple of taps, then stops wiggling and slowly bends back about a foot, then comes back to normal and I can see the plug working again, then the tap, tap starts again. This time I gently take the rod out of the holder and wait, the rod starts a slow gentle bend, then it gets heavy, no throbbing, just a heavy pull. I set the hook, and then fell the throb of a Steelhead on the end. This is a nice buck, that put up a good fight before I netted him. Had about forty five minutes fishing time, after the self portrait was taken I decided to wrap it up, it's starting to get dark, and it's about five miles to the launch, with a couple of rapids to go through. Ken

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