On the Road Again

I woke up at 3:00 to the sound of buzzing alarm that was yelling at me to get up. It was that time of  the year again where the ice on the rivers was mostly gone and fresh chrome were entering the rivers. The buzzing ceased and I climbed out of bed. I double checked my gear to make sure I had everything, ate some breakfast, and then I was on my way.  It was about a two hour drive to Girard Plaza where I met my guide Tim Hess and a tag along Joel Bock. I said bye to my parents, hopped in Tim's truck, and drove to the river. In a few minutes we arrived at the creek and unloaded our gear.  We hiked down to the bank where we encountered six to eight foot high walls of ice. Once we cleared the ice, we rigged up the rods and started fishing.

The water was a turquoise green color. I chose to start swinging some flies and within the first thirty minutes or so I felt a tug. Not realizing that it was a fish for the fact that I hadn't been out since late November, I muffed it. As Tim recalls, it was dancing and leaping out of the water, taunting me.  I recovered from my mistake, performed a Double Spey, and waited. Cast after cast still nothing. I was getting kind of anxious.

Tug, tug, tug tug! I finally had a fish on and it was fighting pretty hard! 

"Walk and reel! Walk and reel!" shouted Tim behind me.

I shouted back, "I can't walk that fast!"

The fish tugged right and left and right and left until it wore itself out. Again and again it would come in close to the net and then make a hard run back out. After about five runs, we got it in the net. I took a look in the net and saw this gorgeous buck. It was my biggest steelhead ever! Its back was gray and its sides were purple; it was the prettiest fish I had ever seen.

We snapped a quick pick and back into the water it went. Feeling pumped, I shot out another cast. Lay the line down off your upstream shoulder, bring the line around to the other side, fling the rod forward and let the running line shoot out of my fingers. Not so patiently, I waited. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my body. My cast came to end so I stripped in the running line and recast. My heart was pounding like a beating drum.  

The rod jolted forward. I set the hook and my line sliced through the water. Five minutes into the fight, I didn't think I was ever gonna land that thing. Then it started towards the riffles. I was running as fast as I could through the water. 

Tim netted it, capsulized it, and I released it. Watching it swim through the water back into the hole is always exciting.

After that was done, I swung flies for about half an hour with no luck. Joel had returned from scouting upstream aways just a little before I caught the second fish. While Joel went to get some breakfast, Time and I hiked up a ways and found nothing but walls made from huge chunks of ice that seemed impassable.    

We traveled back to the normal spot and nymph fished until Joel returned. We finished up the food and started getting reports of some fresher fish being caught just downstream. Not even fifteen minutes later, my indicator dove for the bottom. I set the hook and this bright, little fish jumped out of the water and almost into Tim's arms. 

Even though it was so small I think it was my favorite fish of the day. 

For the last hour no fish were brought to hand so we packed things up and headed back to the truck. I had an amazing time and I want to thanks Tim and Steelhead Alley Outfitters for their great service.