NKI - The Heartbreak of Steelhead Fishing

There are no kayaks involved in this sad tale.  The ocean is still angry - it's late December, after all - and my rivers are up and flowing too fast to fish them from a kayak.  I'm not too proud to fish from the banks when I can't fish from my kayak, and when yesterday was a sunny day with only gentle breezes, that's exactly what I did.  I went bank-fishing.

I had no plans to go fishing until someone whispered in my ear that a steelhead had recently been caught in my favorite river.  You may not know it, but steelhead and I have a classic love-hate relationship - I'd love to finally catch one, they'd hate to be the first steelhead Tinker ever catches, so no other fish gets me revved-up like a chance to catch a steelhead.

I headed out to a spot on the river where I've almost caught the most steelhead.  It's a tricky stretch to fish, and the most effective technique is to swing a fly into the channel where the steelhead play.  It requires a precise 50 foot cast to the other side of the river, and a long, controlled drift downstream until the fly is at exactly the right spot to start the swing.

I haven't made a precision cast since last May - in the ocean you just sort of fling a heavy fly in the general direction you want it to go and if it doesn't snag in your bow rigging, you call it good - so my first ten or eleven casts went just far enough to land in a pile at my feet.  Casts 12 to 20 went a bit further, but not quite half as far as I needed them to travel.  It was up around cast 34 or 35 when I finally landed my fly on the opposite bank, and while casts 36 through (at least) 50 went long enough, I goobered-up the drift and wasted them.

I'd guess it was cast 56 that landed exactly where I wanted it to land and when I got the drift just right - inside this rock, outside of that one, avoiding the swirling current, then drifting another fifty feet to the spot where I wanted to make the swing... and damn me if I didn't hook a fish!

It wasn't heavy enough to be a late Chinook, but definitely felt heavier than a jack, and my heart flew into my throat when the fish leaped completely out of the water - a classic steelhead maneuver - and I could see it was all bright and shiny.

It was an aerial battle, leap after leap, and in between it was a struggle in the topwater - the river isn't at all deep along that stretch.  I could pull it closer to me, then it would run way.  It would charge at me and I would be furiously stripping line to keep slack out of it.

Finally it was close enough to net - and yes, this time I had a net - and that's when my First Ever Steelhead broke my heart by not being a steelhead at all.  It was a Coho.

Folks, there are no Coho in that river and there hasn't been a Coho run in many, many years, but even if Coho were relatively common, they're thoroughly protected fish around here and all you can do is gently release them without even yanking them out of the water for a picture.  Could I have taken a snapshot of it in the water?  Why no, it's a cobblestone bank and the last thing I needed was for a Coho to start flopping around and beat itself senseless.

So I stepped into the river, grabbed it by the tail, removed the (thankfully barbless) hook, swished it around until it splashed me head-to-toe with it's tail, and watched it swim off on it's merry, trespassing way.  Then go home, because the final insult was that it completely destroyed my finest, prettiest steelhead fly.

Sounds like I'm going to have to come down there and show you how it's done.

Seriously, I think it was about year 6 before I caught one although I had a friend who handed the rod off to me numerous times so I could experience the joy. Here's one of my last "steelhead".

Great story, I'm still trying myself as well!

Sounds like I'm going to have to come down there and show you how it's done.

Seriously, I think it was about year 6 before I caught one although I had a friend who handed the rod off to me numerous times so I could experience the joy. Here's one of my last "steelhead".

Oh sure, rub it in.  If you want to give me lessons, it's fine by me.  Someone needs to show me how it's done because February will be the start of Year 8...

I knew steelhead darkened during their spawn, but I didn't know the males formed a kype!  No doubt that bit of steelhead ignorance explains why I've never managed to land one.

Great story, I'm still trying myself as well!

No, it's a tragic story of a boy, his fancy fishing pole, and a #@*%! fish.  But it is a happier story than what happened in March this year...

As surf12foot likes to tell me, all the time: "Look at it this way: now you [me] only have 153 casts left before the Lords of Fishing allow you to catch a steelhead."

Great read. Sounds like you knocked off a lot of rust, which is more than most can say this time of year. I like your chances of notching the elusive steelhead this season.

I need to apologize to that other guy.  I was wrong about what he'd say to me, because he didn't say nothing about only needing "153 more casts".  He went sideways on me and said, "That's great!  You caught a salmon!"

Wait!  What?

Yes, I did catch a salmon.  Does it matter if it was one of those critters you're sure doesn't exist, but not 100% certain they're not out there, somewhere?  A Bigfoot Salmon?  Well, yes, it sort of matters - but nonetheless, a steelhead didn't break my heart by not being a steelhead, I caught a salmon! A stupid, trespassing, I-have-to-release-you kind of salmon, perhaps, but a salmon, all the same.

Sheesh!  When did I turn into Eeyore?