More Steelhead...

I started this post a month ago after making my final steelhead trip to the Salmon River with fellow HFA employee, Chris Lawson. It is now the first week in May, and you may be asking, why are you writing about a fishing trip that has been belated for over a month? In all honesty...only a steelheader would understand.

All week I had been checking the weather, and saw two consecutive days predicting sun and temperatures reaching the mid 60's. This would allow the water temperature to raise and hopefully motivate the steelhead to start moving up river. I already knew why Chris was calling me when my phone rang, and after ending the conversation I immediately started tying dozens of egg patterns in anticipation for the following day.

To make a long story short, the enclosed photograph is the first steelhead I landed that day, and was followed by a dozen more. By days end, Chris and I had landed over thirty fish, and lost many more. At one point we we're hooking up on almost every cast. I may be a fisherman, but I don't lie.

This was a day that I will never forget, and is day that few steelhead fishermen ever experience in their lifetime. I am addicted to steelhead.

Chasing Steelhead

I gathered the necessary supplies, hitched my drift boat to the back of my truck, and headed north for Salmon, Idaho. I had no itinerary, except that I'd be chasing steelhead, a species of rainbow trout that is born in fresh water, goes to the ocean for a number of years to grow, and then returns to fresh water to spawn.

It has been said that there are two types of steelhead fishermen...those that do, and those that don't. Steelhead fishing is unlike regular trout fishing, and a steelhead angler is unlike any other angler. You are pursuing a migratory fish that is maybe not even in the river at the time you are fishing. There is no anticipation of catching different species of trout in the river, because there are none. It's all or nothing. You don't even know if there are any steelhead there, but for some reason you can't stop casting. The feel of a steelhead on the end of your line possess you to go back the next day, and day after that, and the day after that. The Salmon River is lined with tents and campers of obsessed anglers chasing these elusive fish for weeks on end.

One day, I met a physician from Missoula, Montana named Eric. He was also camping and fishing for a few days and I extended him the invitation to float down the river with me. We finished the day catching only one steelhead, and he commented that today was a "good day." With a puzzled look on my face he added that a "bad day" of steelhead fishing is when you wreck your vehicle en route to the river, or you break your rod before you even start fishing...speaking from personal experience.

After living in my waders for four days, I returned to my cozy apartment with all the comforts of modern living, and protection from the elements. However, this personal pilgrimage has started another chapter in my book of fly fishing pursuits that I hope to continue writing for the rest of my mortal life. I am haunted by steelhead.