This will be a late report, but I've been very busy.

We made the trip out to the penisula day after Christmas for a three day excursion chasing steelhead. My brother, my dad and I camped out in the Dew Drop Inn and fished a lot of good water.

The first day in the AM in forks we hit the Bogey at the hatchery and the fishing was great for the first two hours of daylight. The water was rising and it was raining quite a bit. We fished from the hatchery creek on the Bogey to the hatchery creek on the Calawah. Of course it was combat fishing at the tail out of the hatchery drift because it was christmas vacation and everyone made the trip out, and this is where the majority of fish were pulled out of. My dad and brother aren't fond of combat fishing at all, so they went up to the confluence hole while I got in line.

My spot was the last before the big riffle and was not the ideal spot, but afer being yelled at by some russians for asking if I could get in it was the only spot to fish. I hooked two fish here, but ran into some very unfortunate gear malfunctions. All the weather reports that I had read had only forcasted showers, but in forks the water was coming up like crazy the whole day. I had brought my medium/light setup with 10 pound line, normally plenty of power but in these heavy flows and swift current and my position in line the fish ended up going down the chute and I just couldn't get the fish in. A little bit frusterating and I eventually ran out of weight and my fishing buddies had escaped with all the tackle downstream so I walked to catch up.

When I caught up with them, they were fishing the east bank of the confluence of the Calawah, and this is when my father started hooking fish. This is a tough place to fish from the bogachiel side because of overhanging branches and in the high flow there was no crossing to the other side. My father is pretty unpracticed in playing fish, so he lost 3 and caught one big one that was foul hooked, which went back in. This run produced pretty well for all until the water went up too high, fish were moving through very steadily.

My brother left with the roe and tackle because he was frusterated, and I ended up running up further to the hatchery intake creek where I hooked two more fish. I lost these guys because of folks casting over them, the river was way too crowded. This really made my day.

At the end of the day we ended up back at the bogey intake and finally caught two fish, my dad and I, and then it was dark so we called it a day with no photos. All in all, it was a pretty fun day, it's all about fishing, catching is just an added bonus! With a little more practice playing fish, my dad could have had 8 fish in, and heavier tackle I could have had 6, but my brother doesn't quite have the knack of knowing when a fish is biting, so he doesn't think he even touched a fish. Was a pretty good day for it. Lots of fish in the hatchery creeks, lots of fresh fish drawn in by the rain. Gotta get to 'em fast before they camp out in the creek and you can't touch 'em. I wish they'd put a gate on the creek so we could at least get at 'em once the hatchery gets it's quota.

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