Book Review: An Entirely Synthetic Fish by Anders Halverson

When going through the different species of trout on my Trout and Salmon Species Page, one common thread are the problems Cutthroat and Redband Trout face from competition and hybridization with non-native Rainbow Trout. While Rainbows are native to the west coast of North America and northeastern Asia, they have miraculously managed to find their way into streams on every continent (expect Antarctica of course!). The question is what made people fall in love with the Rainbow Trout, while other trout species got swept under the rug?

I recently had the pleasure of reading Andres Halverson's book An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How the Rainbow Trout Beguiled North America and Overran the World. This book dives in the history of the Rainbow Trout's spread and the mindset of the fisheries managers that deemed it in the public's best interest to spread this trout as far and wide as possible despite the negative implications on native populations of salmonids. The book comes full circle, starting by showing mind set that set the stage for the spread of this trout. During which time the Rainbow Trout came into favor as environmental degradation led to diminished native populations and the hardy Rainbow Trout was pumped into as many waters as possible in an effort to "improve on nature." However, as the environmental movement began these management practices started shift first to prioritizing wild trout management and then native trout. I would strongly recommend this book to any fisherman!

For more information check out:

http://andershalverson.com/home

Broken rods, bad weather and big fish

This past week I was able to take advantage of some time off to get out on the water with some friends and even get into a few fish while I was at it. Originally, I just was supposed to have Wednesday off so I talked to my buddy Tyler who was already planning on fishing the salt and we made plans to check out a few beaches. As always tides play a big role in success when fishing for sea-run Cutthroat and luckily for us there were some pretty decent tides for the day, even if they were going to be a bit on the high side.

The first spot we hit was on the Puget Sound and although we did see one jumper that came up five times in the course of a few minutes, it was a little too far out of reach and we weren't able to find any other willing fish. The tide started ebbing off after a couple of hours, so we decided to take the slack period to relocate and headed out to a beach on the Hood Canal. This was a good move. Tyler had fished this beach a few days prior with some success, but this time it was really turned on, as within two casts he managed to catch a fat 15" Cutthroat.

Not bad for two casts...

I was using my go to fly an orange Sea-run Bugger and a few casts after Tyler got his fish, I had a fish chase my fly all of the way in, but couldn't get it to commit. However I made a quick re-cast to where the fish had been and a couple of strips later, blam! Fish on! The fish end up being a nice about 16" Cutthroat and gave my 9'6" 6wt S4 a good work out, before coming to hand.

A well conditioned Cutthroat that fell to the Sea-run Bugger

We each caught a few more Cutthroat before the wind shifted and brought a bit of bad luck with it, as I watched it shift the angle of my fly line on a back cast and send my dumbbell eyed fly right into the tip of my rod. It was immediately apparent that the tip of my rod was done for as it was hanging off to the side at a funny angle. My choices were pretty clear give up fishing during the middle of a Cutthroat feeding frenzy or make some quick modifications to my mangled rod and keep fishing. Easy choice! After trimming things down to the closest guide, my now 8'6" rod was back casting again, surprisingly still able to toss about 70 to 80' of line. Three casts after the incident, I got a good tug, set and saw the flash of a big fish at the end of my line. The fish made a few good runs, but was no match for the now much stouter stubble of a S4 and before long I brought it to the net.

My big Cutthroat

Another shot of the big Cutthroat

There is nothing quite like an 18" sea-run Cutthroat to take your mind off of a broken rod! After catching the big Cutthroat, we covered the rest of the beach and picked a few more fish, then covered it one more time and picked up a few more before the fishing died off. All told we ended up landing around 15 Cutthroat between us, which is a good day by my standards, broken rod or not. 

Tyler and I were on our way home, when I got a call that Justin (another of the fly shop guys) had booked some guided trips during my next batch of days off and wanted to trade me for the next two days. He also said that Chris was planning on going out to the Olympic Peninsula for the next two days, so I jumped on the offer! As such at 4:00AM the next day Chris and I were already on the road, hoping to make the best of a small window before the next big blast of rain hit. As is my typical luck, we picked much less than ideal conditions for this trip and flows were currently too low, but with the amount of rain coming in they would likely be to high by the end of the day. We decided that while the flows were still reasonable we would try one of the larger rivers out and see if we couldn't find a fish or two.

The river

The rain had already started when we arrived, but the river still looked low so rigged up a couple of nymphing rigs and got to work. I borrowed one of Chris' switch rods as it made casting a lot easier on bigger water. However, my bad luck from the previous day wasn't done yet. Apparently Chris' rod had a crack in one of the ferrules and after about an hour of fishing, a mend went wrong and that little crack turned into a full break.

A new way to fish the two hander...

Now one rod breaking I can understand, but two rods in two days is a new low for me and even though this rod had a defect in it, I felt horrible that my bad luck had put Chris' rod out of commission. Luckily I had my my single hander in the car and after a quick hike back and a re-rig I was back in business.

Chris working some great looking water

Surprising after hours of rain, the river still had its color and the flows had hardly even bumped up. However, with the river still low and clear the fish weren't cooperating and the only signs of Steelhead were one spooked fish and a couple of redds.

A steelhead redd - be careful where you step!

With our lack of success we decided to relocate and try our luck at swinging some flies. I had brought my new 13'3" Winston Spey rod just in case we had the opportunity to swing some flies and I was a bit anxious to try it out. I decided to rig up with a marabou prawn pattern that I came up with on a type 6 sink tip and fell in line behind Chris and started casting. I had fished this run last April with my single hander and had felt way undergunned, but with the spey rod in hand, it was a whole new ball game. Utilizing a double spey, casting was effortless and about half way down the run I was surprised by a good tug. However, that was all that I got and after throwing a handful of casts back into the spot it was clear that the fish wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice. We worked our way through the rest of the run without another grab, so we decided to switch flies and give it another pass.

This time I put on a blue and purple GMOAL (Grand Mother of All Leeches), a monstrosity of fur and feathers that could pass for a small bird and started covering the water with it. I was a little below where I had the grab on the first pass, when I got a strong pull and this time got a good hookset. It was clear that it was a good sized fish, but other than a little thrashing at the surface it was staying down and doing a lot of tugging. As I got the fish into the shallows it became clear why, as there was a big chrome Bull Trout on the end of my line.

My first sea-run Bull Trout!

I know that it was no steelhead but, I have to admit that I was just as excited as if I would have been if I caught a steelhead! It was clear by the coloration of this fish that it was an anadromous fish that had been in the saltwater not long ago. Knocking one more fish off of the list of fish that I need to catch to have caught all of Washington's anadromous salmonids. Heck in my opinion this was such a cool fish that one picture isn't going to do it justice, so here's a couple more!

A close up of the Bull's face

The sea-run Bull Trout

Just as I released the fish when Blake who had been fishing the OP for the day (and actually gotten a steelhead) caught up with us and the three of us covered the run until a lack of light forced us off of the water.

Flows allowing, the three of us decided to fish together the next day and luckily although the rain had knocked some of the rivers out of shape, there were still some options around. We started the day on one of the larger drainages, but after about an hour the river turned to mud, so we turned our attention to some smaller options. On one of my last trips to the Peninsula, my buddy Jonathan and I had scouted out a few streams, so we decided to check out one of those.

When we arrived at the stream, it was raining pretty hard, but the stream looked prefect so it was game on. Blake and Chris took the first pool, while I rushed downstream to one of the super fishy spots that I had found on the previous trip. I had one take down in this stretch and felt some resistance when I set, but couldn't tell if it was a fish or something else before it popped free. At a snaggy log jam just downstream, Blake got a good hook up, but the fish had the upper hand and snapped him off before he could pull it out of the jumble of snags.

Blake re-rigging after a run in with a wayward steelhead

We covered a few good pools before Chris declared that it was time for the Redbull, as we hadn't caught anything yet. So we all had to have a bit of Redbull. Blake was a bit resistant to this idea, but finally gave in and let Chris try out his rod while he took one for the team and had some Redbull. Like clockwork the Redbull did its thing and Chris made two casts with Blake's 11'6" switch rod and hooked up.

Chris hooked up with a steelhead - note the Redbull by his feet...Works everytime!

I would be skeptical of the Redbull as a coincidence, but we had all covered this pool prior to cracking the Redbull and this is not the first time that I have seen this situation play out (see here). Chris' fish put up a good fight, but Chris won out after a few minutes. 

Chris with a nice native buck Steelhead!

After Chris got his fish, we continued working our way downstream and I had a good grab that I missed before the days persistent rain turned into a persistent downpour and the river started rising and turning to mud, so it was time to hightail it.

When it rains it pours! Time to get off the water

By the time we got back to the car, the stream which had been a tea color when we started, had risen about a foot and turned to chocolate milk. However, considering that we managed to pull nearly a full day on the water and Chris got a steelhead, while just about everything else blown out, I won't complain. Even though my luck with rods was as terrible as the weather, the fishing more than made up for it and while I didn't get any steelhead I'll take native coastal Cutthroat and Bull Trout any day.

A quick Coastal Cutthroat outing

I had a couple of hours to kill today and decided that my time would be best spent harassing Cutthroat on the Puget Sound. So I grabbed my 6wt, spooled up with one of the new Royal Wulff Ambush lines and head out to the beach. In my opinion, the Ambush is a game changer for how I fish the saltwater. This line makes it relatively easy to toss a single hand spey style cast 60 to 70 feet. This ensures that even at high tide with there is no back room I can effectively cover the water. Coupled with Airflo poly leaders it works great either as a floating or intermediate line as well.

A beautiful afternoon on the Puget Sound

I started out fishing a Clouser and for the first half hour, I just enjoyed playing around with my new line with no grabs, before I decided that it was time to change flies. I switched over to a worm imitation and within a couple of casts I got a solid grab and hook into a sizeable Cutthroat. However, after a series of headshakes and few good tugs the fish threw the hook and was on its way again. A couple of casts later I got another good hook up this time with a smaller Cutthroat and after a short fight was able to bring it to hand. Apparently I had chosen just the right fly as once in my net the 12" Cutthroat spit out a 14" Polychaete Worm! After releasing the Cutthroat, I covered the beach for another half hour, but I had already used up the prime window on the tide and didn't see anymore fish.

A beautiful native sea-run Coastal Cutthroat

A successful release - see if you can find the Cutthroat (hint middle of the picture)

Rain, rain go away!

Plain and simple the last few weeks in Western Washington have been down right nasty. Since the beginning of the new year the pineapple express has moved in and we have had far more rain than we know what to do with. In fact certain areas of the Olympic Peninsula received in excess of 15" of rain just between the 10th and 16th. As would be expected this has put a bit of a damper on fishing for Steelhead lately and has resulted in several canceled trips for me. However, my friend Jonathan and I had been planning a trip for the last month and a half and decided that despite the conditions we were going to go ahead with it. Unfortunately, we could not have had worst timing if the sole purpose of this trip was fishing, as the day before we left the Peninsula received a whopping 3.5" of rain and most of the rivers rose to flood stage. We decided to shift focus to scouting and also brought a bunch of fly tying gear so we could still get something out of the experience.

Flood stage on an Olympic Peninsula River

Over the course of the day we visited most of the area's major rivers and a fair few small drainages and found the same situation just about everywhere. Swollen muddy streams doing their best to escape the confines of their banks. However, by mid-day the rains had stopped and it looked like we might have at least one or two options the following day.

Blue skies over the angry Pacific and the Olympic coastline

With the streams still high in the morning, we met up with Jim Kerr who is one of the more knowledgeable guides on the peninsula. We spent the morning talking about fishing and some of the conservation  issues facing wild steelhead on Olympic Peninsula and ways that the issue might best be addressed. After the meeting, Jonathan and I decided that we might as well go take another look a some of the places we had scouted out on Friday. While it was very clear that the rivers would be out of the question, we were able to find a smaller stream to try out. The stream was still a bit high and off color, but it could be forded in a number of locations and had some great looking water.

Jonathan working over a fishy looking pool

Fishing was slow, but the stream was among the most beautiful that I have fished and in the last pool that the flows would allow us to reach I finally got a grab. I had just tossed my fly in a piece of frog water to set up for a cast into some better water when the fish struck. I set the hook and small Cutthroat came flying out of the water, an apparent sucker for egg imitations.

A small Coastal Cutthroat- at least enough to keep the skunk away!

After covering this section of the stream we decided to head on to see if another local piece of water had dropped into shape yet. The other stream was still high but fishable, but as we did not have a whole lot of daylight left we only got about a half hour in here before it was time to head back to town and start tying flies for the next day.

With a couple dozen more flies in my arsenal, we headed back out on the water for another try at some ever elusive Steelhead. Although it wasn't raining when we got to the stream, there was a 90% chance of rain on the day and we wanted to get to fishing before we had to worry about the stream blowing out. With the high flows we figured that we would head up a little higher to see if any fish had pushed up. After a good mile of walking it was time to hit the water and I started out with my same rig from the day before. Even though the rains had now started, the stream was still dropping and looked to be close to a foot lower than the day before. We covered a couple of decent looking runs, when we came one of the fishier pools that I have seen. The river had dredged out a nice deep slot as it rounded a bend before a rapid, and to make thing better a sizable tributary also dumped in right in the middle of the pool.

One of those spots that is too good not to hold a fish

This spot just screamed fish, and after dredging every part of the pool with my steelhead rig without a single hit, I wasn't satisfied with my results. I figured that even if there weren't any steelhead around then there at least should be a Cutthroat or two. This prompted me to change tactics and go digging through my boxes for a good Cutthroat pattern. I settled on a Rolled Muddler as the best chance I had. On my first cast into a frog water part of the pool I had a couple of taps but did hook up, so I just keep at it. I made about five casts, getting hits on each one before the fish finally committed to it and I was able to get a solid hook up. The fight was nothing to write home about with this fish and once I got it into the net it quickly became apparent why...

A beautiful but very skinny native Coastal Cutthroat

I think that the picture says it all on this one, as this Cutthroat was among the skinniest that I have ever seen and was clearly a post spawn fish. After getting a quick photo I watched fish cruise back into to the depths, switched back to my steelhead rig and we continued downstream.

A streamside old growth Sitka Spruce

The remainder of the stream was excessively beautiful, but with the exception of one more small Cutthroat, it didn't seem to want to give up any more fish. However, there are some places where just being there more important than actually catching anything and this was one of those spots. I could quite truthfully have cared less if I actually caught anything on this stream and consider it among the most beautiful places that I have ever stumbled across.

One of the most beautiful places that I have ever been

After reaching a point were stream got too deep and fast to continue downstream, Jonathan and I decided to head back to the car for a quick lunch and to figure out the rest of the day. For some reason I really had the urge to go check out one more stream and Jonathan was quick to agree with that plan, so we headed down the road for one more stop.

Some tea stained skinny water

The water on the next stream still had a lot of color, but since we were already there we figured that we might as well give it a shot. We covered a few good holes without so much as a tug and after an hour and with the weather deteriorating we decided to cut our losses and hit the road again. While we couldn't find any Steelhead the combo of Cutthroat and fishing some new water more than made up for it

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!! I got out on the Puget Sound yesterday for my first outing of 2010, to test out a new marabou prawn imitation that I came up with. It was an incoming tide, so I headed to a local estuary that has been fishing well lately. Upon arriving at the beach the wind was howling straight on shore, but that wasn't going to stop me so I went for it anyways. As it turned out, after about fifteen minutes on the water the wind started to die down so I was in business.

The beach

With the tide already well on its way in, the current was really moving so I started covering the water as I would swinging flies for steelhead, making a cast then continuing a couple of paces down the beach before casting again. I had covered about 100 yards doing this when I got to the edge of a tide rip and things started to happen. First I got a couple of missed strikes, then a couple of casts later I got a good solid hook up. The fish didn't do too much jumping, but instead thrashed on the surface a bit and pulled much harder than can be expected for its size. Classic sea-run Cutthroat... After a short battle, I brought the beautiful 15" Cutthroat to my net, took a couple of photos and then watched as my first fish of 2010 swam back into the depths.

A healthy ghostly chrome 15" Cutthroat

After the Cutthroat I got a couple more hits, but the rip started pushing out of range as the tide rose and made it so I couldn't get to the fish. With that I headed down to another productive stretch of the beach were I had another good hook up, but lost the fish and had a few more hits. With the light failing me at this point it was time to call it a day on my first outing of the new year.

Sunset on the Puget Sound

Gotta make the best with what you have

After our last trip out to the Olympic Peninsula, Chris and I have been itching to get back out there. After several days of watching flows, when we both finally had a day off again and while river levels weren't ideal, we decided to go for it anyway. With that we met up at 4:00 AM and were on our way for another day of steelheading.

The river - high and off color

Upon arriving at the river it quickly became clear that the flow and clarity were going to be an issue. In fact when we forded a tail out to get to one of our favorite holes there was only about eight inches of visibility. This meant that bright flies were likely bring us the best chances of success, so I rigged up with a nymph that I came up that has a copious amount of pink UV flash in it, followed by a glue egg. This step up definitely made a good dirty water nymphing rig as Chris noted that all he could see an orb of pink as it drifted by.

Covering the water

We pounded the water in the stretch for several hours, but didn't see any signs of fish and it seemed like the water was just to high, so we decided to move downstream a bit further. We covered the entire next several hundred yard stretch downstream and Chris got one take down, but that was it. It was at this point that Chris pointed out that he had yet to drink his Red Bull and that this fact was putting a crux on our fishing. Sure enough, I had only made a couple of casts after he cracked his Red Bull open and made a drift into a slot between a couple of boulders when my indicator went down. I set on it and at first thought that it was just bottom as it didn't budge, then the fish realized it was hooked and took off.

Red Bull = steelhead???

The first thing that I noticed was that this fish was was much bigger than the one that I had gotten on our last trip. It also seemed to be quite a bit stronger. The fish ran me up and down the tail out a couple of times before I got it close enough to see that it was a nice about 9 lb chrome wild buck Steelhead!! Wild Steelhead are a very special fish and with the dwindling populations of these fish across the Pacific Northwest all of them should be released unharmed. Due to this fact Chris and I were extra careful with this fish and that meant that when the fish decided that it didn't want a photograph take it got its way. I was thrilled to have a had the opportunity to catch a fish a wild Stelhead and watch it swim away again to hopefully continue on to the spawning grounds.

I made a few more casts while Chris finished up his Red Bull and hooked into another fish just in front of where other one had been holding. However, I only got a couple of head shakes out of that fish before it tossed my fly.

With that it was Chris' turn. Chris was fishing his new switch rod and while I could only reach the middle of the river with my single hander he was able to get to the seam on the far side. After a couple of casts his indicator went down and for a second I thought that had a good hookup, but like my last fish this one too was able to toss his fly. However, a few casts later Chris found another fish and this time got a solid hook up on it.

Chris hooked up

Chris fought his fish for a while, but while mine had decided to simply stay in the tail out, his decided to head downstream. Chris followed the fish down and had to work to keep the fish out of the rocks and snags along the bank, but brought the 6lb wild buck Steelhead within tailing range before long. Once again we were being very careful with this fish since it was wild and just as Chris went to tail it the hook popped out and the fish slipped back into the current.

After the short distance release of Chris' fish, we covered the pool for another a couple of hours, but it seemed that the effects of the Red Bull had worn off so we decided to go try some new water.

The first spot we went to was a deep hole with a big eddy one our side of the river. We had only been here a couple of minutes when a fish rolled in the eddy. Chris tried a few casts but didn't get any grabs on the inside of the eddy so he started working the seam on the edge. With that I took the inside and watched as the unknown fish rolled again. The current was pretty slow here so I was giving my fly some sporadic twitches downstream followed by a dead drift to give it a little extra action. I was in the dead drift part of this routine when my indicator started to move slowly upstream. I set on it and the water erupted as about a 10lb Coho broke the surface. After a short battle (very short compared to the Steelhead) I brought the fish in, pulled the UV Bomber fly out of its jaw and turned it loose. We spent a little more time fishing this stretch after I released the Coho, but we still wanted to check out a hike in section of the river, so before long we headed out again.

The culprit - a wild hen Coho

We picked a stretch of river about a 1/2 mile from the road and found a nice hole were a tributary dumped in. While we saw a couple of fish roll in this stretch the only thing that we got out of it was some lost flies so we kept moving downstream.

Chris working some of the hike in water

We covered a few nice runs downstream with no luck before the banks became to steep to continue and we had to turn around. While there was some nice water down in this section it would definitely fish better with less water, like most of the river.

The hike out was a bit steep...

After checking out the hike in water, we still had a little bit of daylight so we decided to head downstream and try out one more spot. However, while we did see a few fish roll, the amount of daylight just didn't allow us enough time to properly cover the water and we had to call it a day.

Winter Steelhead Time

While the Puget Sound has been fishing quite well for sea-run Cutthroat lately, it has been hard to not start thinking about winter steelhead. The only problem has been that November was an exceptionally wet month and virtually all of Washington's coastal rivers have been blown out for the last three weeks. Since the season started, Chris Ringlee (a fellow guide and co-worker at the fly shop) and I have been monitoring the river flows looking for a break and we finally got one this last week. With the rivers finally dropping back into shape, we decided to make the run out to one of my favorite Olympic Peninsula streams.

As with most steelhead trips, we got off to an early start and were on the road by 4:15 AM, which placed us on the water just as the sun was rising. The air was crisp when we hit the water and the water had just about the right amount of color too it. Being that we were fishing a smaller stream, Chris and I both decided to toss nymphs although he was using his switch rod and I was stuck with my single hander. We both had a couple of takes in the first few runs, but no hook-ups so we went searching for better water. I had fished this river last year and hooked a fish not far below where we were fishing, so we decided to see if we could find any fish in that spot.

The river

Once we got to this spot, it didn't take all of that long to see that there some fish around as one rolled right in front of us in the first five minutes. With proof that there were fish around, Chris and I started pounding the water and before long he hooked into a good sized fish. This fish was extremely active and seemed to be bent on spending as much time out of the water as possible. The coloration of the fish looked a bit strange and at first we thought that it was just a dark steelhead, but after the fifth jump we got a good look at it and could see that it was about a 13lb Chum Salmon that had grabbed Chris' egg imitation.

Chris' Chum taking flight

This Chum put up a heck of a fight, but before long Chris won out, then set it free to continue upstream. After this we hit a lull and for the next hour we fruitlessly covered the water and started donating flies to the snags in the river like they were going out of style. However, the lull didn't last and Chris got a good take but missed it. Now that we knew that there was a fish holding in this section of the river we decided to rest it for a little while and cover the pools just upstream. I covered the pool just above where Chris had the grab, while Chris opted to grab lunch. It was here that we saw one of the worst displays of low-holing fishing ethics that I have ever seen. Although I am not going to name the culprit a certain Olympic Peninsula guide snuck into the spot that we were resting, not thirty feet below me, made one cast and caught a steelhead (probably the one Chris was resting...), bonked it, made a comment about that being a "good spot" then headed off downstream. I am not one to get to upset about sharing the water, but this was just something else. If I want to fish a spot were somebody else is, it is common practice to ask permission first, not to just barge right in. I might be able to excuse this with the average fisherman, but for a guide to do this it really left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

Covering the water

After the incident we had to once again rest the hole, but this time kept a much better eye one it. When it did come time to fish it again, I got the first shot at it and had a good take but missed it. However, before I could make too many more tries at running my nymph rig through the hole again, Chris hooked into a fish in the hole above me.

Chris putting the hurt on his fish

This fish didn't seem to interested in jumping like the Chum, but instead tried to go deep. It didn't take Chris too long to get the fish in and we were surprised to see that it was a 10 lb chrome bright wild hen Coho Salmon.

Chris' native Coho Salmon

After the Coho, fishing seemed to turn on for a while and Chris hooked up with a nice chrome Steelhead that ran across the pool a couple of times before taking him right into a rock and coming off. Within about five casts of this, Chris hooked into a second larger Steelhead that he had on for a few seconds but it also came unbuttoned. We worked the pool for another hour after this but before long decided that we wanted to try out some new water so we continued downstream. We covered a good 1/3 of a mile downstream and although it looked like good water, we didn't see any sign of fish, so made the decision try out another stretch on the lower river while we still had some day light.

Working the way back upstream

When we got to our next spot, we figured that we only had about another hour to fish before dark so we quickly found ourselves a nice run and got to it. Chris covered the pool first, while I came up behind him now using a pink and purple nymph trailed by an egg imitation. I was about half way through the run and had tossed my flies into a seam behind a log when my indicator shot under the surface. I set the hook and instead of feeling the dead weight of a snag, there was the clear throb of a head shake. The fish immediately took off down stream, but proved to be no match for my 8 WT and I was able to keep it fairly well under control. Before long I got the fish in close enough to get a good look at it and could see that I had a nice about 4-5lb chrome steelhead on the end of my line.

Me hooked up with some steel

The fish made a couple more runs and did a bit of thrashing on the surface before I pulled it into the shallows. I still couldn't tell if the fish was wild or hatchery and didn't want to drag it up on shore just in case it was wild so instead I pulled it up onto a shallow shelf so Chris could check. This is where things went wrong. The fish was lying on its side in the water and Chris was making the check, when the fish decided to thrash and threw the hook. It sat on the shelf for a second, but before either of us could react, it slowly slide back into the current and out of sight. So technically I "landed" (it was on land at one point) my first steelhead on the fly, although I didn't get the honor of touching it or to get a photo as I would have liked to.

After my very short distance release of the steelhead, we covered the rest of the run without any further signs of fish. We didn't have a whole lot of day light left at this point, but fished through the next run before a lack of light forced us off of the water. All and all it was a great day on the water. We caught some fish and hooked a few others, which is more than I could ask for. I can definitely say that I will be back out there again the first chance that I can get!