My son has never caught a Steelhead so I headed back to my home town of Forks for some high water, winter run fishing. Usually have very good luck plunking the Quillayute, but failed this week.

Fished two days with the first being Thursday, the 20th.

I knew that the natives were netting until Friday afternoon as I seen two, one an old friend, down at Richwine Bar on Wednesday p.m. One of them was fun fishing with a pole, the other was b.s.ing him and occasionally taking his sled up above and throwing out a drift net. The fun fishing guy had no fish while the drift netter had two, including one native fish around 17 pounds. Anyway, they told me that they could fish until Friday Afternoon.

So, headed out on Thursday morning. Fished just above Richwines. Water was high with 3 feet of visibility, which is el-perfecto for plunking for these moving fish, fresh up from the Pacific. But, as perfect as the conditons were, we never had a bite, which is not uncommon, as I have yet to catch a fish while the natives are actively fishing.

There was another guy up there in his sled running a drift net on this day. He would pull up right even with our poles and throw his net out and drift it right in about 30' below us and drift for about 500 or 600 feet. At least every other trip he caught fish, and once or twice he had three.

He would then head down and do the same below the main bar. I could not see him here, though. He had his truck and boat trailer parked on the bar at Richwines. Every now and then he would pull in and throw the fish from his boat into the pick up. I would estimate that he had somewhere between 30 and 40 fish from 8:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.

We took Friday off. My kid got tired of watching the fish being netted in front of us. I am used to it and it never bothered me at all.

So, we went again on Saturday. Know a guy that has property a little higher up above Richwines. Headed down there and packed in. Set up and was fishing by 9:00 a.m. High tide was 2ish, or so. We never caught a fish and only had one bite. Bite was at 1.55 p.m. but never got the hook into the fish.

Across the river and a little above, there were 10 people plunking. they had a slow day, as well. They caught two and lost one. We stopped fishing at 3:00 as we had to get to town for my brothers' 50th B/day.

I will try again here in a couple of weeks or so, as long as the river is high and dirty:)

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