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It looks like another nice day for Steelhead fishing, looking out the windows while having the morning coffee we can see a little ripple on the water, it is cloudy, rained during the night, outside temp. is 39F. Too good to pass up, so we toss the boat bag in the Jeep, get our little English Setter loaded, and it's off to the river.
In about thirty minutes we are at a gravel launch site, I back the boat into the water, then Barb powers it off the trailer, I park the Jeep, and Barb picks me up at the rivers edge. We have been doing this so long it is like second nature, and only takes about five minutes.
Get the boat on plane and head for a spot that we have not fished for a while, on the way we see five ir six Bighorn Sheep on the canyon wall, and a couple not far from the edge of the river. After going through three or four sets of rapids we arrive at our fishing destination.
Pull to the head of the drift. We are fishing with three rods, one one each side, and ane out the center, have tried putting a fourth rod out, but sometimes the lures will get tangled, and when a rocket Steelhead gets on it can really make a tangled mess before all the lines can be pulled in. We get the belly of the plugs scented, and start a very slow backtroll, this drift is about 200 yards long with several back eddys making it a little trickey to stay on the current seam, the water is shallow in places, with milfoil growing on the bottom, if the boat moves forward the plugs dig into the grass, usually picking up some junk that must be removed.
I had told Barb about catching the Steelhead yesterday by pulling in slowly at the end of the drift. So we are nearing the end of this pass, and start pulling the outside lines in slow, we have the lines about half way in when Barb yellls "Fish On", I look over and she has grabbed the center rod which has the fish on. Now that is a sight, a fishing rod in each hand, one with the lure still in the water, and the other with a fighting Steelhead on the other end, she can't reel either rod. I am reeling as fast as I can to get my line in, she says "hurry, hurry", well I finally get the line in and grab the rod out of her hand that dosen't have the fish on. Things are calming down now, the fish is making some pretty good runs, and had jumped completly out of the water when she was holding both rods. Barb plays the fish for about ten minutes, it rolls on it's side and I net it. This is a small Steelhead, maybe five pounds, if that much, probably the only reason we got it in with all the excitement going on. We take a quick picture, and release the fish to fight another day.
Our little English Setter "Happy" is giving the signal that it is break time, so we pull into a good sized sandy beach located above the stretch of water we are fishing. We get Happy taken care of, pour a cup of coffe, have a snack, enjoy the scenery, and laugh about the events this morning.
We power the boat off the sandbar, start another pass on the same drift, about fifteen minutes had gone by when Barb yells "Fish On", I look over and her rod is bending double with another Steelhead, she said "did you see that", when the fish jumped. There is a very small sandbar right beside us, so I beach the boat on It. The Steelhead put up a good fight like most of them do, in fifteen or twenty minutes we landed and released the fish.
Have only completed one fourth of this pass, so instead of starting over from the top, we will just continue from here. We put the lines out on each side, and I have put the center line out, just as I am putting the rod in the holder, my rod slams down, and a Steelie is trying to rip it off the boat. I tell Barb "I've got one on", This was another good fish, and a grand finish for a perfect day in Hell's Canyon. It is around 1:00pm, after we released the beautiful Steelhead we decided to save the rest for another day.
How lucky we are to live in a beautiful place like this, and we give thanks. Good luck to all of our W/L friends
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