Morning Redemption

It was overcast morning in the middle of October as I donned my waders along a favorite summer steelhead river.   While I prepared for a brief morning session before heading to church, my mind started to wander. After experiencing a surprisingly productive summer dry fly steelhead season,  I found myself in the midst of a dry spell coming through late summer and early fall.  I had gotten spoiled with the periodic, but less than consistent surface action the rivers provided me from early summer through late summer, but the seemingly sudden downturn in top water steelhead activity started to mess with my head.  My summer surface steelhead connections showed me beating the odds, especially with current low returns,  but fall is prime time for surface steelhead and my recent results didn't reflect that truism.

I was armed with my 11' 3wt trout spey and the natural bomber variant that I have been tying in recent months.  This fly is basically a split winged bomber with a cow elk wing added between the trimmed deer body and front facing split calf tail wings.  After fishing primarily foam waking flies for the past 10 years, I sought to come up with an all natural pattern that met my critieria for visibility and staying on the surface with consistency.  I finally came close enough with my "bivisi-bomber-wang".  I had raised steelhead on the pattern but had not actually landed any while using it yet.

I started at the top of the run, lengthening line with each cast until my OPST Commando head and a few strips of running line were out the tip of my rod.  It was a cool morning and I was enjoying sips of hot coffee from my thermos cup that I keep tucked in the front of my waders as each cast approached mid swing to the dangle.  It was before I had my normal "9 strip" cast out that I heard a gulp and saw a splashy rise in the periphery of my vision as I had my coffee cup tipped back for a drink.  My line drew tight in an instant and the steelhead took off on a run as I tucked my coffee cup back into the front of my waders and switched the rod over to my left hand so I could crank on my 3 5/8" Hardy Perfect with my right hand.


The steelhead made a couple more short bursts and leaped a time or two as I drew it closer to me.  I kept steady pressure with a low rod position and tension on my reel.  After a few mintutes, I had the steelhead in the shallows along my bank.  Just as I was able to get my sights on what appeared to be an average sized steelhead in the 6-8lb range , the hook pulled out.  Ah well, there was still time remaining to see if other steelhead were around.


I resumed my position and extended my cast out to the 60-70' range.  This amounts to what is a comfortable casting distance with the light rod and short head.  I continued working down the run and when I was about 20 feet below my starting point, another explosive rise came to my bomber in mid swing, and again, the line quickly came tight with a run and a leap.  Judging by visual appearances and the nature of the fight, I could tell that this steelhead was above average in size.  Steady pressure and exerting as much tension as I could on the steelhead had it coming towards me in a short time.


I have been criticized for using light gear for steelhead, however as has been demonstrated through my personal experiences repeatedly, exerting maximum pressure (palming/fingers on the reel spool) , maintaining a low rod position, and staying with appropriate steelhead tippet (8 or 10lb Maxima for me) get steelhead in quickly.


There was not a convenient area that would allow me to draw the steelhead near to the bank so I got the steelhead as close as I could.  I did the trick of drawing in line by stripping to allow for my rod to be lifted above and behind me as I reached for the leader.  The trick worked and I carefully hand lined the steelhead within grasping range.  I was impressed by the broad shoulders of the hatchery buck which I guessed to be in the 12-13lb range.  I could see that the bomber was firmly lodged in the mouth of the steelhead.  This whole process is an awkward maneuver as one is simultaneously grasping the leader and being constantly prepared to release pressure if the steelhead tries to run off, while trying to keep track of loose line not tangling in the guides of the rod, should the leader need to be released.  Things were going well and I was about to grab the wrist of the steelhead's tail, when he gave a last ditch flop which popped the 12lb section of my leader.  I made a desperate attempt at getting a hold of my prize, but he was quickly gone with my freshly tied bomber and tippet section. I was surprised that my tippet snapped in the stronger 12lb section.  I figured that I either had a wind knot or that the loop knot I used weakened the mono.


I can say, I was just a little bummed at losing probably the largest steelhead that I had hooked into for the season.  However as a steelheader gets older and crustier, those losses don't tend to hurt as much.  I wasn't really in the mood to deal with harvesting, filleting, and freezing a late season hatchery steelhead.  A picture would have been nice, but even that is not as important to me anymore.  I don't post fish pics on social media as much as I used to - probably because I realized that I don't have anything to prove and there are plenty of steelhead pics on Instagram already.  I got everything I could have asked for from that steelhead - a beautiful rise, a powerful and exciting fight and an up close look at the prize that I seek.

I still had the lower half of the run to fish and enough time to fish it,  so I tied up a new tippet section and went back to work with another one of my bomber variants.  As I got near the bottom of the run, I slowed my pace because this stretch of water has held rising steelhead in multiple locations.

 As I got into the beginning the hot zone,  I was startled as yet another aggressive rise came to my fly near  the dangle.  The steelhead made a series of short runs until I had it with in range to see it was seemingly a twin of the first one I hooked into earlier,  in that 6-8lb size window.  The steelhead was drawn close to my bank when the hook pulled out.

It was not a day for getting fish slime on my hands,  but I was beyond content with the fast paced surface action in the compressed timeframe of about an hour.  It was that magical time that may happen a time or two each fall when I luck into a loaded run.