Like the good old stories of other's, my best steelhead days were 30+ years ago. The most steelhead caught was at the Gold. Using a small spin & glo they called Gold River special, and even on a flooding state of the river, 25 wild beauties were landed. What a memorable steelhead trip. The biggest steelhead I had hooked and landed was at the rapids of the Vedder. At first I thought I hit a log or snagged up. It felt so heavy that was unreal when it started darting among the rocks in raging current. It jumped and tried to shake the hooks many times. I couldn't believe the size of that beast. It would dash among rocks and tried to hug behind them to get the current break. With only a 12 lbs leader, I knew I had to make the beast work against the strong currents of the rapids to tire it out. So I would deliberately jerked the rod tip to bug the fish to come out from behind the many rocks it tried to hide and rest in between its mad dashes and tugs. It seemed like forever and walking hundreds of feet down the rapids. Eventually it came in at the small run at the bottom of the long rapids. I couldn't even tuck the fish to the shallow to land it. Luckily an old gut was fishing there and he helped tail the fish. He looked at the size and said I hooked a spring. Lol. No it was a huge wild buck with a red colour stripe along its side. Unfortunately, there was no portable camera with me that day. Back then I carried the bulky Motorola phone. It had no camera. I had hooked many 16 to 18 pounders in 40 years of steelheading but nothing compared to that beast in size and fight. Now an old soldier of steelheading, I will carry the memory of this beast with me for the rest if my life. Tight line all.
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Topic: Share your Golden-Ages Steelhead Stories (Read 8842 times)