Last year i went down to the skagit to fish for steelhead and had a great trip fishing from a 23 foot jet boat, side drifting roe. This year thought i would do the same trip but unfortunately the skagit was closed to protect the wild steelhead.
The guide we have been using took us to the cowlitz river instead. Always wanted to fish the cowlitz. The river was somewhat busy with about 20 shore fishermen in the areas we were fishing plus about thirty boats drifting and anchored plug fishing. We were side drifting with small number 2 hooks and small chunks of roe our of a 200 hp jet boat.
First few drifts, one of the four guys fishing hooks a whitefish followed by myself hooking and landing a nice chrome 8 lb hatchery buck.
Not much action from other boats at this time or from the shorefishermen who were mostly float fishing and lure fishing. About three fly fishermen out on the stretch we were fishing but they didn't seem to hook into anything all day.
It appeared that there was a lot of steelhead in the system because they were jumping and rolling consistently all day. In fact this is only the second time i have seen so many steelhead jump/roll (the first time being a warm boxing day about ten years ago on thompson river).
Based on the start of the trip, i thought we might be into a lot of fish but after the next couple of hours we didn't get a sniff of a steelhead.
Finally one of our crew hooks into another 7-8 lb buck which he lands.
Seeing that there were not a lot of fish being hooked in the area we were fishing we decided to head up river a bit and fish a beautiful stretch of water with some deep seams along the cliff bank. As we get to the first hole, one of they guys indicated he just lost a steelie. He was fishing from shore out of his boat and drifting his roe through a deep stretch of water.
We get nothing as we drift by a stretch of water that looks really fishy. As we shift to the other side of the river and hit the opposite bank, i hook into another chrome steelie. After heading up and down about a three hundred yard stretch of excellent water we ended up hooking into five more steelhead. In fact we even had a double header which i ended up long line releasing. As the day came to an end, we decided to head back towards the boat launch were we started and do a couple of drifts by the shorefishermen. As we get closer, many of the fishermen were hooked into fish. On our second drift, one of our buddies hooks into his first steelhead but unfortunately, this brute of a fish escapes.
All in all, we hit 8 steelhead and landed 6. All 6 were bucks and only one was slightly coloured.
Excellent trip overall.
The steelhead on the cowlitz are not as fiesty as ones i have caught on the bc rivers but with light tackle (9ft gloomis light action rods and small spin cast reels with 10 main and 8 lb leaders) it sure made it fun to hook into these decent size steelies.
i will add some pictures later.
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Topic: Cowlitz River, March 27th 2010 (Read 773 times)