Dogs Day Out

Our last trip out was with Tippy and the new motor, which the dogs did not get invited to so when boredom hit today around 1 pm it seemed only right to make it a dog day.  We decided to drive up the road a ways from our house to a place where three rivers come together for a little hike.  There is definitely more hiking involved than fishing on this stretch.

 The cool thing about it is that we’ve only seen one guy up here before (which was actually kind of shocking).

Now I know that I said I was over steelhead for the season, but there’s just something different about it when you can hike and catch them in very small water.  Most of the time you can see them, and if you can’t, they’re either there or they’re not.  The pools are so small and the fish will be so hungry at this point that they are going to eat if they’re there.  As an aside, the cutthroat fishing can be awesome, and they are everywhere.  Every little pool behind every little rock can hold a cutthroat; the biggest topping out at about 14 inches.  The cutthroat fishing isn’t open until May 24th, but by-catch is inevitable and they tend to hang in the same water as the steelhead (funny thing).  

This guy was nicknamed “Piggy” because aside from eating a ridiculously large bead, he puked this up.

A trudge up from this spot is the one place.  The one where a fish will be if they’ll be anywhere at all, and today he was there.  A regret that I have is that I didn’t try to skate this fish up with a dry.  When I threw my beads in the water, before they even had a chance to sink, he came up and hit them.  I actually didn’t really know what to do, reacted like an idiot, tried to set the hook, stung the fish, and ultimately lost it due to horrible hookset.  It’s one of those situations that you replay in your head while berating yourself over and over.  Oh yeah, and when the hook left the fish’s mouth I promptly threw it into the only spindly tree within reach behind me.  T was down river and probably heard the expletives, because he kind of made his way up.  I sat for a bit and rested the hole thinking that there was no way after stinging the fish that it would eat again, but it did eat a bead essentially on the surface of the water.  After about 15 minutes he ate on my first drift.  Wonder how long I really needed to wait.

He was wild and hadn’t spawned yet and looked like this was the place that he intended to do so.  He was super healthy and I was actually pretty blown away by how acrobatic he was.  Pretty much made my day because up here you never know what you’re gonna get.

After this spot there is one other up and down a very long muddy trail, which we hiked for the dogs and just to be out of the house.

I don’t know if I said it, but this is a seriously beautiful place with skinny water, and green everywhere if you come at the right time.  We didn’t catch anymore steelhead, but one up here is all you should expect and hope for.  More and you’re just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.  It poured the whole day, but the dogs wore themselves out, we had fun for a couple of hours, and it makes sitting down to watch television at the end of the day seem like an okay thing to do.