Fished from High Bridge down to Sultan. I usually hit the launch by 5:30 but today I waited until 9am. 12-15 trailers in the lot and I had the launch to myself. Waiting a few hours for the big group to work down was nice since I had the river mostly to myself from 9am - 4pm. When I started, the water was just under 5k and very clear. My first surprise was just after the first bend. As I pulled through the big corner and into the eddy on the inside corner, I looked down and there were four fish hanging close to where the sand bar meets the gravel. They were surprised as well and promptly took off. I pulled off and walked up on the bank to wait to see if they would regroup so I could take a whack at them, but no dice.

I spent the next few hours working bait (eggs, prawns, coon shrimp) in all the right slots, tail-out, etc. to no avail. I finally decided to switch to hardware and that made a difference. Just before the clay banks, I tossed a black roostertail and it got hit fast. What I was sure was a small steelhead at first turned out to be a 4.5 - 5lb dolly. A beautiful fish, full of color. For the next hour I landed a number of other dollies (not nearly as big as the first) and a few nice bows. Working downstream into some of the better steelhead water, I switched back and forth from hardware to bait, depending on the situation. By the time I hit Sultan, I had numerous Dollies and Rainbows accounted for, but no Steelhead. A few solid takedowns between Wallace and Sultan, but none landed.

As I was sitting at the ramp getting ready to pull out, a couple of guys in a small sled launched and within minutes hooked and landed a nice 10-12 pounder 100 feet from the launch. That's the way to do it! They were side-drifting roe.

Chatting with the guy doing fish counts, he said he only recorded 6 kings landed for Sultan and Lewis Street combined. Rather slow considering the number of fisherman out. Still a good day to be on the water though.

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