Steelhead Fever

Finally a weekend without torrential rains, snow, or freezing temperatures. Time to go chase Steelhead. Paul and I started our day with breakfast at Camp 18, nestled in the heart of the Coast Range on Hwy 26. Here's a shot of Paul emerging after his Logger omelet, humming Steelhead Fever to the tune of Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever".



After breakfast we made our way to the North Fork of the Nehalem where we were pleased to see we had the river to ourselves. The flow was still pretty high from all the rain of the past week but the color was OK, sort of a hazy green. The gauge at the hatchery was at 40 inches, my experience is that mid-30s is far better. The hatchery posts an update on fish numbers and river level every day at 8 AM (503 368-5670), it's definitely worth checking before heading out. The first sign of fish was when we crossed the bridge that's about 1 mile up from the parking lot. We could see about 6 fish working a shallow trough along the bank, rolling and rooting around in the rocks and chasing each other back and forth. We both floated flies right through the pod but they had other things on their mind..... We then made our way up another 1/4 mile or so to a honey hole where I caught a bright native fish last year but the flow was too high so we pushed on. Next stop was a smooth stretch of deep water along a steep bank that was tucked in between heavy water both upstream and downstream. Paul took the first pass and then I moved in for a go. Finally my indicator stopped - no rock this time - I set the hook and it was off to the races. It was a bit of a circus, I'm trying to get the fish onto my reel, and at the same time I'm trying to get my camera out so Paul can get some action shots. Following is some great video he got in the heat of the action.





After the video-graphy Paul grabbed the net and expertly scooped him up for some photos. The first shot shows an example of the intricate fly pattern (Glo-bug) that stimulated the bite.






Paul measured him at just over 28 inches, but it was a native fish so we let him go. It would be a shame to deprive him of the opportunity to sow his wild oats on some nice gravel.

Unfortunately that was the only Steelhead of the day, though Paul did manage to get a nice Rainbow. Fortunately the native run is just getting started so there's still plenty of time to go back - I know Paul is itching to get back out there.

North Fork Nehalem

Thursday - January 28: I went out with Marcus (AKA one of the Neo-dudes) over to the N. Fork Nehalem with the specific goal of trying to learn how to fish for winter steelhead on the coastal rivers - preferably the smaller ones like the N. Fork. We went with a guide that calls his business "Small Stream Outfitters" [http://www.smallstreamoutfitters.com/], which I just happened to find while surfing the web. The starting point was a dirt road just past the bridge upstream and across the road from the hatchery. We parked at a locked gate about 1/4 mile up, but the road continues into private forest land that is open for walk-in fishing. We started fishing in the first run about 1/4 mile from the gate but there was nothing happening. At the next hole we spied a couple fish dancing back and forth across the current in the tailout but once again no takes. We kept moving upstream, fishing with a variety of flies ranging from an Ugly Bug - kind of a Wooly Bugger type thing - to small fluffy egg patterns. In all cases we were also using a small bead egg on a dropper about 15 inches below the first fly, a couple split shot the same distance above the first fly, and a big-ass indicator. The rig was kind of unruly to cast, a combination roll cast / single-handed spey technique was all you could use. Fortunately the river is small enough that you didn't need a lot of distance.


The first grab I got confused me, I expected to see the indicator take off rather than just stop, and since we had been snagging rocks and the bottom quite frequently I didn’t really drive the hook home until I notice there was some give to this particular rock, and it was moving upstream. Unfortunately, I missed that one so we kept moving upstream. The next grab came in some very fast pocket water where I was essentially high sticking the fly through some big boulders. This time I was pretty sure it was a fish, and when I struck I saw a flash of silver, but once again I missed him. Once again we moved to a new hole, and since we were now a couple miles upstream the river was pretty shallow, but with deep troughs here and there with big boulders for cover. Jesse (our guide) pointed out the best drift, including a big rock where fish often hold, and on the first cast as my indicator floated past – wham – fish on! Finally a steelhead on a fly rod. The battle was intense but relatively short. It was a pretty dark hatchery fish that measured just over 27 inches, probably about 6-7 lbs. We were fishing about ½ mile above a fish-ladder where fish moving upstream are normally trapped, with the wild ones released by the ODFW so they can continue upstream, and the hatchery fish removed to preserve the native stock (they take the hatchery fish to the food bank), so this fish had managed to jump over about a 4 foot falls – that’s what I call sex drive!



After lunch we started making our way back downstream, hitting some of the same holes we had fished on the way up. When we returned to the spot where I had my first grab in the morning, I drifted through the same boulders again and this time when the indicator stopped I slammed it home. The next thing I knew I had a silver bullet of angry native steelhead screaming around on the end of my line. Fortunately, I had my 8 wt, but even with that I couldn’t stop him from running downstream, so off I went running, ducking under trees and trying not to fall off the basalt shelf along the shore. Finally, after many runs and acrobatics, I managed to work him close enough that Jesse could grab him with his jumbo sized net. When the excitement was over I was drenched in sweat from the battle. I now understand the difference between wild and hatchery fish.


We fished a few more runs but that was it for the day. Unfortunately, Marcus didn’t get a fish, though he did have a few grabs. In addition to catching my first steelhead on a fly rod, I also accomplished my goal of learning the techniques. I can’t wait to get out again – the run of Native fish is just getting started.

Yellowknife

Yellowknife: The Provincial capital of the Northwest Territories, situated approximately 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Starting point of the ice road that leads North to the diamond mines in the Arctic. The town is on the shore of Great Slave Lake, the deepest lake in North America (2,010 ft) and the ninth-largest lake in the world. It is 300 miles long and up to 68 miles wide.


I was in Yellowknife for the International Circumpolar Health Conference, but having heard that Great Slave Lake had massive Northern Pike I had my fly rod along just in case. My friend Matt (pediatrician and fishing fanatic from Anchorage) and I hired a guide that catered to fly fishermen and set out at about 9 in the morning. The time of day didn’t really matter since the closest thing to night was when the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky turned a bright pink for a couple hours before it came back up again. It’s kind of disorienting when the sun just goes around in a big circle rather than rising in the East and setting in the West. Fortunately we were blessed with a perfect day, with enough of a breeze to keep the clouds of mosquitos away, but full sun and temperatures in the 60s.

As we left town we went through a bay with a variety of houseboats.

We motored for about 30 minutes through a maze of rocky islands covered with small pines. We were in the Taiga, which is just south of the Tundra, and the trees don’t get very big.




We finally stopped in what was essentially a lake that was about ½ x ¼ miles that connected to the main lake via a deep channel about ¼ of a mile long. We fished by drifting across the lake with the bow pointed downwind, which allowed casting without worrying about a tailing loop getting blown over the boat and hooking someone’s ear.
The front half of the boat had a flat wooded deck, and we took turns standing at the bow casting. After making a cast we would step back away from the bow and start stripping line, allowing the other person to get up front and make a cast. Matt and I were perfect partners, with me being left-handed and he right-handed, we could each just cast and then take our preferred side of the boat.

We were casting 10’- 6”, 9 wt rods with big flashy streamers – think overgrown steelhead fly. The fishing regulations for all of the Northwest Territories require barbless hooks, which helps when trying to extract your hook from a toothy pike. It was tough duty trying to throw such big flies, but it sure was good practice for the double haul. Fortunately the wind was not very strong, and distance was not a big issue, all you needed was about 20-30 yards.



It couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 casts before the first hook-up. The water was only about 5 feet deep and you could see the fish as they came racing up after your fly. Sometimes they would just inch toward it and check it out, and usually the takes came when you paused for a few seconds between strips. Initially they tended to just bulldog down to the bottom, so you had to work to get all of your line onto the reel. But after a few tugs they would take off, stripping line against a very tight drag. We caught nothing but Northern Pike, also known locally as Jackfish. The size varied, with the average in the low 30-inch range. However, we had number of real monsters, two over 41 inches and several in the 36-40 inch range. This one of Matt’s was a little over 41 inches – notice his elbows are fully bent, no optical illusions needed for these beasts.



Getting the hook out was an interesting trick, but Colton had a spring loaded spreader he used to keep the mouth open while he reached in with his long pliers. He also wore a steel mesh glove for extra protection.



Pound for pound the Pike don’t compare to a steelhead or a Deschutes redside, but when you consider some of them weigh 15-20 pounds, they still put up quite a fight.

We caught so many fish we lost count. It got to the point that if you went more than 3 casts without at least a strike you starting thinking something was wrong. After 6 hours of double hauling and fighting fish my hands and forearms were so cramped I had to hold the rod with my forearm while bringing in fish. Even my cranking hand was getting cramped from the workout. All in all it was an amazing fishing experience, and a great chance to get out and really experience the land and waters surrounding Yellowknife.

After returning to town we did a brief pub tour and then had a dinner of Char and Whitefish, washed down with a couple bottles of Checkvar, also known as Budvar, the original Budweiser. Here’s a picture of the place where we ate, it was called “Bullocks”, which according to Wikipedia is a term for a castrated bull. The restaurant was run by a couple of very self-sufficient women, but that’s another story……….

The Middle D

We watched the flow and saw it drop Monday night from around 1500 to just below 900. On Wednesday we got there around 11 and it was gorgeous. Periodic sun breaks, wind was off and on, and a great water level. I started down below the big cut in the rocks with an Adams and got a nice redside of about 10 inches from the soft water along the edge of the main current. Fished hard for a while longer in that whole section but never had a rise and never saw another fish.

I then moved up to the wide flat area by the old barn / mine on the far shore, which is just before the river narrows and flows into the fast deep water. With the water level where it was there was just a nice soft riffle from the rocks on the bottom that made it look very fishy. Since there was nothing happening on the surface Mark and I ate lunch and then fired up a stogey and switched over to a nymph rig with stone fly and dropper. I joked that after all the gear changing the fish were probably going to start rising - and then I looked out at the stretch I wanted to fish and saw it boiling with risers. The fish were really slapping the water and I didn't see any bugs, so I figured they were after emergers. So back to the dry. This time I put on a Clark's Stone essentially as an indicator, and a soft hackle caddis emerger as a dropper. The first brownie grabbed the Clark's stone while I was letting it hang at the end of the drift. The current was cooking so it was a great fight on the 3 wt., coming in at just about 12 inches. The risers kept moving to different spots, and it was too deep to really get in close range so I just tried to be systematic in covering the likely water. The next brownie nailed the emerger, also while hanging at the end of the drift, it was similar in size to the previous fish.

The biggest thrill of the day came while drifting the nymph rig - the indicator took a dive and I lifted the rod into what felt like a nice fish. As I watched my line go streaming off the reel, unable to turn it back out of the current, I started running along the shore chasing the beast. Then about 5 minutes later when I got a bunch of line back it took off upstream on me. I'm thinking what kind of monster is this??? When I finally got it into shallow slow water I discovered the answer - it was a big-ass sucker foul hooked in the back. When I saw that I quickly pulled my fly free. None the less, that one really got my heart pounding - what a blast !!!

I think that 900 cfs is actually a perfect flow rate, there is enough water to allow the fish to move up into the flats, and it's still wadable. I think if the sun had been out a bit more the bugs and fish would have been more active, but it was a still a memorable day.

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.

No Place Like Nome

After three flights and seven hours of flying I finally arrived in Nome. For those like me who have heard of Nome but have no real idea where it is I have included a map. Near the center of the map you can see the Seward Peninsula sticking westward into the Bering Sea, and Nome is on the southern shore.

Another fun fact: it's the end of the famous Ididarod sled dog race from Anchorage. Here's a shot looking down Front street, where they set up the finish line, that's the Bering Sea to the left.

I had come to Nome to meet with the staff at the Norton Sound community hospital and tell them about the work we have been doing on an inherited metabolic disease that is very common in the local Eskimo population. I also spent a morning with the tribal research ethics committee explaining a research project we have proposed that would involve some kids from the area. Fortunately my two days of meeting was highly productive and it looks like we are going to get the green light for our study. Here's a shot of an Eskimo mom driving her 4-wheeler through town with her infant tucked under the back of her coat (purple hat), a common way to carry the young. There are more 4-wheelers in town than cars, the hospital even has a "4-wheeler only" parking zone.

Fortunately we also had time to play. I had been joined in Nome by a friend from Anchorage that comes out several times a year to run a pediatric clinic at the local hospital. Matt spent quite a bit of time living in western Montana, where he frequented the Henry's Fork and streams throughout Yellowstone, therefore I knew that if I showed up with a car after he got done with clinic I could convince him to go fishing. I was able to rent a truck from the Hotel, and had 6 and 8 weight rods with me, so off we went. The tundra on the way to the river was in full fall colors, we even saw a few musk ox grazing.

The road was firm gravel, and followed along the Nome river heading out of town. We drove about 15 miles out until we came to a bridge over the river, which was also the end of the maintained road.

The next two pictures were taken from the bridge, this first one is a nice panorama showing the beautiful colors and the crystal clear water.

This shot was looking straight down from the bridge, the large white things are decomposing sockeye that were all over the river bottom. There were also a few actively spawning silvers but it was pretty late in the year for salmon. However we were happy to see that the trout were here snacking away. You can see two big Dolly Varden in this shot just to the right of the carcasses. For perspective keep in mind that these were probably 8-10 lb. salmon, those were monster trout!

In spite of working it hard we were unable to get any trout to chase either an egg pattern or flesh flies. (Can you really call a piece of bright orange rabbit fur a fly?) Matt did manage to catch a couple of grayling on an egg pattern, but unfortunately I was across the river and didn't get any photos.

The next day I caught a plane back to Anchorage, with a stopover in Kotzebue, which got me above the arctic circle for the first time. It was an interesting flight, we were just about to leave Kotzebue when the captain came on and said that the high school football team from Pt. Hope was delayed on their bush plane flight in to Kotzebue, so we sat and waited about an hour for them and a few other folks that hadn't made it to the airport yet before we finally left. I had two days off before having to work again so when we landed in Anchorage I rented a car and drive out to the Kenai peninsula for the weekend. The weather had turned nasty, 40's and rainy over through the mountains. I found a little cabin with no running water to rent for the night, and awoke to clouds but no rain. When I looked out my window I saw this fish mobile in the lot next to my rental car and knew I had come to the right place.

On Saturday I went out on my own after stopping at a local fly shop and getting some flies (more egg and flesh patterns) and some advice. I went to Quartz creek, where there were still quite a few beat up old reds still spawning. The trout were also there in great numbers snacking on eggs. It was like seeing the great circle of life right before your eyes, big salmon coming in from the ocean and trout swimming three feet behind them waiting to snack on their eggs and eat their flesh after they died.

It took a while to get the hang of the technique, which was essentially a dead drift through the spawners. Of course that meant once in a while you would snag a sockeye, which on a 6 wt. meant I just tried to break them off before I lost my line. There were mostly Dollys in the creek but one guy I met did land a nice rainbow. It was all catch and release so no meat fisherman were to be seen. This was my best Dolly of the day.

It was like a day in Oregon, an occasional drip of rain but mostly just low clouds.

On Sunday I had arrange a float down the middle portion of the Kenai river. This was the same river Zane and I had floated the year before, but now was getting into prime season for trout. The river was littered with dead, dying, and spawning salmon. The reds were mostly dead but a few were still on the beds and looking really nasty. It was also the start of the pink run, also known as humpys, which are just plain ugly. But it's pretty amazing to be going down a river and seeing humpys porpoising all over the place. Once again the tactic was egg patterns. Most of the gravel spawning beds are in water that is only a few feet deep, and then it drops off sharply on the downstream side to where the trout sit and wait for eggs. This was my best fish of the day, and for that matter my biggest trout ever. It measured out at 25.5 inches and was a nice big fatty. The biggest fish of the day was about 26 inches and a bit fatter than this one. They occassionally catch 30 inch and bigger fish out of there, and I lost a couple that may have been close to that.

Sunday night I drove back to Anchorage, which is only two hours from where I was fishing, and spent two more days working before returning home. I think I'll keep working this Alaska connection, maybe next year I'll check out the steelhead runs.......