What a day! First fish was an absolute tank of a wild steelhead. I hooked him on a yarnie and he started thrashing on the surface and jumped a few times before taking off down river where he took about 100 yards of line in seconds and I had the drag pretty tight. He jumped one last time about 100 yards away while I was chasing him downriver so I wouldn't get spooled but that last jump proved to be exactly that and he spit the hook. It was easily in the upper teens if not bigger and chrome bright. I couldn't stop shaking from that thrilling encounter. Then about an hour later I started drift fishing a pink warm and my first cast resulted in a beautiful chrome bright native steelhead that fought much differently from the first. She would take off then just hang deep and I could barely move her but patience paid off and I got this one to the bank for a quick picture before releasing her back to go do her thing.

I couldn't have asked for a more epic day to close the season on this river. I'm glad I decided to drive back from wsu to get one last day in. I will never forget this day because they were the first wild steelhead I have encountered from this river and they fought incredibly hard. I wish we had a spring season on the sky and skagit so we all can have days like this with 60 degree weather and all kinds of wildlife and chrome bright wild steelhead.

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