Yesterday was such a beautiful day in Hell's Canyon, the sun is shining, air is crisp, the Snake River is like glass, perfect day for steelheading.

We launch the boat off the gravel/rock launch above Buffalo Eddy, point the bow upriver and travel four or five miles to a drift that has been good in the past.

This drift starts in fairly slack water that is about 15' then shallows up abruptly to 8' with more current. We put the little Honda on remote control, using the TR-1, get the plugs scented, put out 60' of line, then start a slow backtroll. In about five minutes my rod takes a violent jerk, I tell Barb "I've got one", just as I take the rod out of the holder the Steelhead takes a leap out of the water, then strips out line, jumps two more times then tires, and Barb nets her, beautiful fish that matches the fall colors on the river.

How about that, we just get started and land a Steelhead. We are still at the upper part of the drift, so we put the lines back in and continue. In about twenty minutes barb yells "Fish On", I glance at her rod and it is bent double, she takes it out of the holder, I am so busy getting the boat away from shore that I miss seeing the fish jump twice. This one is really a fighter, jumps three more times before bringing it to the net. We are both shaking with excitment, two acrobatic Steelhead in less than a hour.

We made two more passes, caught two more Steelhead, one on each pass. They were beautiful fish, both were bucks and did not clear the water, hard fighters though.

We were fishing for about three hours, when we pulled out it was getting dark. River temp. was 52*, water clear, dead calm, and beautiful, with the smell of fall in the air.

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