Finally Conquering The Wily Steelhead

We’ve lived in the wonderful state of Washington for more than a year and a half. And today I finally caught a wily Evergreen State steelhead. On my last post I whimsically hoped that the next post on this subject would include a “success” photo. As you can see above, wishes do come true.

My son Doug and I got a last-minute chance to fish today in between a series of storms which have been hitting our coast relentlessly of late. Last night a quick call to Bob Ball, our guide, gave hope. “The river dropped a foot and a half today,” he said. “We’ve got maybe a 24-hour window; get over here and we’ll give it a shot”. That’s all Doug and I needed.

At 7:00 this morning we were squishing through a still-dark muddy trail which led to the spot where Bob had tethered his drift boat on the Bogachiel River. Steelhead fishing is not for the faint-of-heart. The temperature was still in the 30’s but we were layered up with warm clothing and head-to-toe rain gear as we climbed into the boat. In a drift boat the guide rows primarily and fishes when the boat is at anchor. The clients, however, get to fish all the time. You kinda wish for the reverse when it’s cold like this morning was.

We fished hard for a bit more than eight solid hours, constantly casting a grass shrimp bait rig upstream and letting it drift downstream past the boat until the line straitened out. Then you do it over and over and over again, hoping that one of these crafty creatures will stop long enough on its upstream spawning journey to chomp on your shrimp.

The rain hit us about 9 am and tried its best to soak us for several hours. Then the wind came up and chilled us to the bone. But the rain gear held, and we stayed fairly dry. We even warmed up a bit when the rain died down, thanks to a great little butane heater which radiated just enough warmth to keep us semi-comfortable.

You’re not really considered to be steelhead fishing in the northwest unless it’s pouring rain, blowing wind, and the temperature is less than 40 degrees.

I’d love to say it was skill that landed the two fish above. But to be honest, it was pure luck. The two really skilled fishermen today were my son and the guide, each of whom hooked several fish but for some weird reason were unable, on this day at least, to get the scrappy things to the boat. In fact, we all lost fish after hook-ups. The guide did his job – he put us in the fish and that’s all one can ask for.

O yeah, these are hatchery fish, not natives (notice both are missing the adipose fin on the back near the tail). They each weighed about 6-1/2 pounds, a little on the small side for coastal stream steelhead. But we’ll have one smoked and we’ll barbecue the other one. If you’ve never tried it, there is nothing quite the equal of smoked or BBQ’d steelhead.