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[Gooey]

Well being a long weekend, I decide to do a "little" hiking on a popular river and try and find some nice water away from the crowds.  I was successful in that and  I was pleased to bump into very few fishermen in my travels today!

I got to the spot in mind and saw a fish break water in the tail out so I decided to would hit the run with some hardware.  Spinners and spoons left me empty handed so after 30 minutes I switched over to bait.

Immediately on the first drift my float starts dancing...I could envision a school of smolts decimating my gob of roe.  Sure enuff those little buggers found my bait in just about every drift in the run!  It was gorgeous roe so instead of wasting any more I decide to sit down and pull a bunch of eggs off the skeen and tie up some roe sacks.  The sacks made a big difference in that the roe sacks were much more resistant to the smolts and I could let the float drift without worry about my bait being demolished. 

The pool took a while to wake up...maybe 45 miuntes after first light I got my strike, a nice 3-4 lb chrome wild coho.  After fishing some softer water and find lots of smolts and only one coho, I decided the slide my split shot closer together and fish the heavier head water. 

First drift the float goes down!  Its a bigger fish this time, a little bronzy flash at the bottom of the pool made me think I had a small spring on.  It certainly behaved like a spring, staying deep in the pool skulking around the bottom.  After about 5 minutes of this back and forth, I got it closer to the surface...hmm I thought, much to lean for a spring, wrong color and fight for a coho...what could it be?  After a few more minutes I worked the fish out of the heavy head water and into the softer tail, and was I ever surprised - a nice 8lb steelhead was at the end of my line!

I worked it in and noticed that it was clipped doe so in she came.  My first steelhead on the tag this year!

After that I hit another coho and a chrome jack spring.

All in all a great day on the river, now its time for a quick nap before the turkey dinner begins!

[steelieman]

Steelhead in October. Must be really lost............................

[chris gadsden]

Steelhead in October. Must be really lost............................

Most likely a Summer run fish.

[Gooey]

here's a link to a pic of the fish: http://www.fishingwithrod.com/member/gallery/gooey/Posting_pic

Most definitely a summer CG.

[Floater]

Maybe its an atlantic slamon they allways look different in every pic.

[BIG T]

Congrat to you on your first steelhead of the year.Unfortunately according to regulation for region 2 as long as a steelhead is caught and kept.you are done for the day,sir

[Rodney]

Gooey you're a big guy, so hard to estimate the size of that fish from the pic. The fish looks quite skinny from that angle, isn't it possible that it was a kelt from the last winter run?

[steelieman]

Looks like a spawned out summer run from the Chehalis.... maybe it thought the Vedder is the Chehalis..

[Gooey]

No, definitely a summer, I have some nice boraxed steelhead roe in setting as we speak.

[Big Steel]

I think that Big T might have a good piont there Gooey!!!!

[bentrod]

Nice steelhead.  I caught a mirror image steelhead a couple years back this time on the Chehalis.  pretty rare, but great to catch. 

[Fish Assassin]

No, definitely a summer, I have some nice boraxed steelhead roe in setting as we speak.

Thought it was a kelt too but obviously I'm wrong if it has eggs.

[FlyFishin Magician]

Way to go Gooey.  That looks like a "kelt".  Anyway - I noticed that you mentioned the following:

My first steelhead on the tag this year!

After that I hit another coho and a chrome jack spring.

After retaining a hatchery steelhead - you must stop fishing for the day.  However, I believe that you can go to another river.  Is that correct?

[FlyFishin Magician]

Oops - Big T and FishFreak already provided comments...

[Gooey]

While I have cut a lot of people here slack (as they accuse me of breaking the rules and dont know the full story), it seems I am getting very little lee way in return and need to clarify things a litltle more.

I don't post a lot of location details in my reports, fish are out there and if you put the effort in you will find them too!But by not disclosing specific river details, I have started bit of a S**T storm.  By the way, all of you Nay Sayers are absolutely wrong - I broke no regulations.

As FF stated, he would expect that I would know my regs...i do...do the rest of you know them as well as me?  In this case you may, but its really more about applying them correctly to the whole story.

The reg you all refer to is this (word for word from the regs):

"when you have caught and retained your daily limit of hatchery steelhead in any water you must stop fishing that water for the day"

As an example it is totally legal to retain a steelhead on the chehalis, driver over to the vedder and continue to fish.  I assume you could even RETAIN another vedder steelhead if you were lucky enough to hook another (altho I never have done such).

I hope this clarifies things for all the haters out there, I had a great day fishing and I just wanted to share some of that experience with the group here - so can every one chill!