Flew into Portland and hooked-up with my brother-in-law (aka dirty Samchez) for a quick weekend shot at some Washington waters that I've never fished before. Generally speaking, (no offense Samchez) I never expect to hook anything when I'm fishing with my brother-in-law. Never was there a man with worse fishing juju. I could net thirty fish on Friday, and when Sam shows up on Saturday, we won't touch a fish for two days... sorry man... but it's true.
HOWEVER... that changed this last weekend...
We showed up on the Kalama before day break with no cars in the pull-out. Rigged up and went bank-side and right away spotted some squishy salmon working about three feet off the bank. I'm not sure, but I think we also saw a monster summer steelhead mixed in there with the salmon, but it was gone before I could get the line in the water. Water color was perfect and the flows were juuuuust right. We started drifting some egg patterns behind the working salmon no more than 4 ft off the bank and within the first 20 minutes or so I'm hooked up with a hot pissed off fish, probably pushing 10+ lbs.
That fish bolted for the other bank and before I could get it on the reel, my 2x tippet said, "snap!" Rookie move for sure. Fighting a huge steelhead on a single-hander with 25 yards of line at your feet is not what I'm used to.... By then a couple of gear guys had crept in just below me and were starting to do work. Nice guys, but they had it all wrong. They were bombing 50-70 foot casts out into the middle of the run. I said, "I hooked that fish right off the bank," and the guy goes, "I think they're more our in the middle of the run..." A new rig and 10 casts later, I'm hooked-up again with another fish no more than 4 ft off the bank... guy should've listened..
It hurts me to say it again, but that fish broke me off as well. At least I had it almost to hand before it broke off this time... What hurts even more?... I broke two more fish off before I finally got the smallest fish of the day to hand... but that's how it goes when you're a protard like myself.
Sam.... we need to have another talk about your camera skills...By noon Sam and I had hooked a combined 8 fish out of the same water, which was causing a little bit of a commotion with the gear guys. Pretty soon they started to surround us, bombing plugs and bobbers over our heads right into our water... I almost shanked one dude when he threw his shit right over my flyline and just let it drift. I mean... really? How about I haul a cast right into your face on accident...
We bailed right after that and then fished some other sections of the river for nada. Near the end of the day we decided to come back to the same hole we started at to see if we could get a happy ending, but the place was crawling with gear guys when we got there. We figured the day was good enough so we just cracked a few beers and watched the sketchy locals toss plugs for about an hour.
Just before the sun started to go down people started to bail, so we swept in for a few last casts, and right in between four gear guys not catching shit, and three gear guys talking trash to us "fly guys," Sam pricks a chrome-bright steelhead and everybody shuts up all at once... pretty good feeling...
"You're from Oregon, eh?... Ever though about going back?..." the dude says to Sam... and that's when we left.Banner day, but would've been better if I could've touched all the fish I broke off... if it's only about the fight, then I got what I was looking for.
Handy work from the locals...
I will admit my fish mojo leaves a bit to be desired and yes my camera work is lacking but your camera is not the most awesome in the world and I was jacked to get my line back in the water so I could have cared less about your pinner steelhead at the time. If the fish checker would not have chopped it's head off to get the chip in it's dome we could have got a better shot before the day was over. You also forgot to mention the two fish you lost Sunday morning. All in all it was a great weekend and now every river with in 100 miles is at or just below flood stage. Time to go duck hunting I guess.
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