Last night at 6:30pm I turned on the outside lights, and saw snow coming down. Our plan was to get up in the morning at 5:00am, and have the lines in the water by 8:00am, before going to sleep I was thinking of a slippery launch, and bad things that could happen.

When we got up I looked outside, a light coat of snow was on the ground, and it was snowing. The outside temp. was 31F, and no wind, looking like a great day to catch a Steelhead. When we get to the launching place there is a light coat of snow, but since it is a gravel/rock launch we got the boat into the water without a problem. Snowflakes were coming down as we headed upriver to the place we wanted to fish.

When we arrived at our chosen drift five or six miles from the launch, light snow was still falling, no wind, water is like glass, water temp. is 45F, air temp. is 30F. Barb holds the boat in place while I get the TR-1 AutoPilot engaged, and the little Honda warmed up, it is 8:00am when we get the lines in the water.

We just barley get started on a slow back troll when Barbs rod slams down, she says "Fish On", we are inside the zippered canopy of the boat, and it is a mad scramble for her to get to the thumping rod, the fish is rapidly stripping line out when she takes the rod out of the holder. The Steelhead stops for a moment, then makes another run, then comes partially out of the water, far behind the boat, Barb says it feels like a pretty big fish, she continues to pump the fish to the boat. When she gets the Steelhead near the boat it makes another run, after a few minutes she has tired him out, I slide the net under him, it is a beautiful fish, about 12#, with all the rainbow colors, we get a picture, and release him. What a way to start the morning.

We aren't far from the start of the drift, so we just use the 9.9 Honda to get there. We start another slow back troll, it is 8:35am, I see Barbs rod take a bounce, then it slams down with another Steelhead on, Barb insists that I play this one since she just caught one. No argument from me, I jerk the rod from the holder, this Steelhead is headed downriver non- stop, strips a lot of line out, slows down then takes another run downriver. I am about half spooled and thinking about chasing him when he comes to the surface, I tell Barb he might be foul hooked, from what I can tell from a long distance he could be hooked in the tail. I put the trolling motor on slowest idle, then start making headway getting him to the boat, every once in a while he makes another run. After about twenty minutes we get him to the boat, and Barb nets him. This big Buck was hooked in the mouth, but had totally rolled a 4' leader, and about a foot of main line around his body, with a half hitch at the tail, never had one do that before. We take the fish out of the water, cut the leader and line off, take a quick picture and back in the river.

This turned out to be a fantastic day of fishing, for us anyway. We each landed three Steelhead that ranged from about six to fifteen pounds, with Barb catching the largest, she had a hard time holding it up for a picture with cold, numb hands. We caught the last fish at 1:00pm and called it a day, this was a really nice, beautiful day, cold and crisp, starting out with a coating of snow, ending with the sun peeking through low clouds in the canyon.

Ken & Barb

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