Gear on the Wilson

So I got a call from my friend Neil, who is a retired Doc that used to have my job, asking if I wanted to go float the Wilson for Steelies with a guide that he uses a lot. We met at 6:30 AM on the stretch of the river that runs through the dairy cow country on the flats outside of Tillamook. The winds were up in the canyon running down out of the coast range so we avoided that part of the river. We were in a drift boat and started off side drifting egg patterns with a heavy weight to get it down to the bottom in the fast current. It's essentially like nymphing without an indicator. We didn't get any takes so we switched to plugs. You hold in the current with the oars and trail plugs that dive deep into the current and slowly work the boat back and forth and down through the holes. We caught 5 steelies - 3 were wild and had to be released, but two were hatchery fish and came home with us - Sweet Meat !! Neil also hooked into a chinook. The season ended January 1st so we had to let it go, but what a blast that was. We were fishing with pretty substantial steelhead rods with casting reels and braided line. This chinook just toyed with us, there was no way to hold on if it decided to run with the line. After about 15 minutes Neil handed the rod to me, and I finally got it into the net. The estimated weight was 30+, I am totally ready to go back and hit the fall chinook run out there.

It was amazing to me that we could go out and catch 5 steelies in a day, whereas when swinging flies it's a great day to get one hook-up. I am thinking there may be a way to adapt hybrid methods that would allow you to get your fly down into the deep water where they were holding, essentially using the sink tip and some weight to get the rig deep and then slowly swinging back and forth as you slowly work your way downstream - we'll see. At any rate it was a great time, and fortunately it was warm and sunny over at the coast. Here's a shot of the one that ended up on my dinner menu.

Swingin' for Steel

After getting snowed in over Christmas and flooded over New Year's I was itching for some river time. Most of the rivers are still flooded or extremely high, but the Necanicum tends to drop and clear early, so I decided to give it a shot. There was still a lot of snow in the Coast Range and blown down trees everywhere along the highway. But the river was fishable, even if a bit murky still.

Having never fished the Necanicum I wasn't really sure of where to go. I talked to a couple of guys getting their eggs ready and asked about fly water. One of them told me "not on this river", and the other told me to head upstream a way and try glow bugs. I didn't have any glow bugs, but I took off back upstream and found a place to park along the road and bushwacked my way in along a little creek to the main river.



I was pleased to see - and smell - a number of salmon carcasses along the bank. I also saw a pair of really beat up old salmon getting ready to spawn in some gravel on a creek that was about 5 feet wide. This was a nice skeleton I found, it's laying next to my 8 wt.



I started using a tandem rig with a purple egg sucking leech and an old pink salmon egg pattern (almost a glow bug) as a dropper. I couldn't tell how deep it was but the rig was swinging nice so I just kept the faith and worked my way down a nice stretch. Suddenly I started getting pulls on my rod - could there actually be steelies in this muck ??? On the next cast I got a hook up - a beautiful 12 inch coast cutt - it would have been a ball on the 3 wt., but not much of a challenge with the big cannon.


After a while with no takes I switched to a dead drift with an indicator, but nothing doing, that cutt was the only fish I brought in. As the morning went on the river started clearing, which showed me that I was not exactly in the prime water, but at least I now have a good idea where to start next time out. Hopefully with clearer water the prime drifts will be easier to spot. If nothing else maybe I'll just bring along the 3 wt and catch cutts if all else fails.