January Heatwave

With the unbelievably warm weather pattern we have had, I decided to head back out for steelhead in the U.S. For three days I fished in temperatures between 50 & 60 degrees. If this isn’t Global Warming, I don’t know what is! The snow is all but gone and the rivers are spring like in flow. Unfortunately the water temperatures drop when all this is in motion, causing the fish to sometimes become more lethargic than usual. It’s sort of like putting ice into a drink to make it colder! The first day Jim & I had to travel plenty in order to get the 15 or so hits we had. Most of them were smaller than we had hoped for, but fun never the less. The largest fish landed would have been a brown trout over 5 pounds. As usual, the largest steelhead never gave us a chance for a photo as they managed to get off somewhere along the fight! On the second day I fished with Tom & Jim and the fishing was even tougher with Tom landing his first steelhead minutes before dark. A few browns were caught during the day and several hits were missed along the way as well. Jim had a brief encounter with a screamer that schooled him immediately! The third day had me making even more changes as we decided to take a long walk to areas that are usually less pressured. After about fifteen minutes into the fishing day, Tom locked into a real giant of a steelhead. This fish would have gone close to 15 pounds if we ever actually landed her. Unfortunately she was dime bright & full of energy and had other intentions. I had to travel a long way downstream with Tom to try and gain back some of the line she was spooling from the reel, but eventually the leader just gave out. Minutes after Tom was back fishing, he was into another fish and tight to battle once again. Another big steelhead and seconds later, gone! He finally managed to land one but it was rather small by comparison. This went on for the next 45 minutes with Tom hooking into about 7 or so fish, all chrome. I managed to get in a few casts during this ordeal and landed a brown trout & lost another steelhead. The rest of the day was spent traveling up river to try and intercept some of the fish we battled unsuccessfully. Hindsight should have had us stay put and work the area completely as we never touched another fish for the balance of the day. Migrating fish are always tough to locate and with the low, colder water lately, even harder. All in all, it was a good trip, but the landing ratio could have been somewhat better with most of the fish hooked, getting off. I can’t wait to get back and get even!