Winter Steelhead have been called the fish of 1,000 cast,
the winter ghost and other expluratives that I will not repeat here, the point
is they can be down right frustrating.
Water levels out of control, weather fronts, moon phases, odd days
versus even days all have accounted for weird/unique fishing strategies that I
cannot discredit or credit. One thing
that I know is the persistence pays off, that is what makes successful fisher's.
Not everyone can just drop everything in their lives at a moments notice and going fishing when all of the stars align, so we have to get out fish and learn from every experience on the water.
Here are a few examples to further this thought:
Con
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Pro
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You arrive at the launch and there are 20 plus trailers in the parking lot
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Great all of the fish will be gone
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Perfect they will push them into not so obvious spots,
perfect for fly fishing
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Water is clear
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I’ve never caught fish in clear water
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Change of tactics and flies, think smaller
Perfect now I can see the bottom and
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Sun is out
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Fish are going to go and hide
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First of all, rejoice any day that the sun is out during a
WA winter, pick your opportunities and fish them hard. Remember it is not raining so it is a good day!
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Fish on
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Shucks it is not a steelhead
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Value any fish; if the lie holds small fish it will hold big
fish remember it, especially at different flows.
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Focus
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You can miss opportunities when they present themselves,
often very quickly.
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Strike when opportunity knocks, fish move, don't become a pylon in the river, the more mobile you are the better.
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Tangles or snags
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Dang I have to re rig, don’t get down on yourself, you are
trying to push your limits and you are growing as an angler
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To catch fish you have to fish cover, enjoy re rigging you
will get fast and will catch more fish. I don't know how many times I've heard I fished all day with the same fly, my response is "how many fish did you catch", "none why", I thought it was a effective new fly pattern I needed in my box, now I know you are lazy". Practice your knots at home it pays dividends on the water.
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Recently many of these came true when I had a chance to fun fish with Gus. The rivers where blown out, the color of a hot chocolate with marshmellows but neither of us had a chance to just fish in over a month. As Gus said you can't catch a steelhead from the couch lets go.
We actually had other business to attend to that day as well, we had to fish a new prototype rod that will be out from Winston sometime this year. The rod was fantastic a huge improvement from the model we had earlier in the year, needless to say we will both probably have these in the boats next fall for winter steel heading.
The idea here was to reiterate the fact that fishing is supposed to be fun, if you learn a little each time you are out you will be amazed at how you improve as a angler.
Well I can honestly say I'm looking forward to the switch to trout in the next month, look for updates and reports, from many trout streams around the state. Here a couple new tasty morsels that I can't wait to serve, to a big fat Rainbow or Brown back in Michigan next month.
Tight Lines,
Craig
