Rearranging my work schedule a bit so I could get down to the river today, I took full advantage of the rain that came through yesterday and caused the river level to spike. My hope was that with the rise and fall in water levels I would be able to find a bright fish today.

That hope was confirmed; on to the report.

Again repeating what is starting to become my routine with this river, I headed in above the red gate early, beginning with drift gear in slightly larger sizes than I would typically use during the middle of the day. The action wasn't quite as fast right off the bat as I would have expected, but all of that was forgiven when a chrome bright hatchery hen hit my size 10 orange corky about 20 or 30 minutes after starting to work my first drift. This particular fish picked up my offering all the way at the end of the swing and then proceeded to go airborne, displaying her gleaming sides and giving me hope that I was soon to have the bright fish I had come for. Despite only being just over 5#, she had some serious tenacity and took longer coming in than some bigger fish I have landed. Maybe its because she didn't rip off a big run right at the beginning. Whatever the case, I got her to shore, dispatched her, and got back to fishing.

Pretty soon after landing her I switched to a pearl pink size 12 corky, and not long after got a hit from a big moldy thing. It was funny, as it darted away I could see white all over its snout. Not sure what that fish was thinking. Round about this time a few other anglers had come down to this particular hole, and I was figuring that it was about time to get out of there anyway as the bite had slowed.

Earlier while fishing that run I had noticed some action about 50 yards upstream of me at a spot I had never fished. Figuring that there may be a fish or two up there, and more importantly noting that no one had yet fished it that morning, I headed upstream and tied on a 1/16oz nightmare jig. Not long after finding the correct depth to fish this hole, I had a lazy bobber drop, set the hook, and began a fight with a nice double stripe hatchery buck. This fish was great, every time I got it to the surface it would angrily dive again, but after a few minutes of that he came in quietly and let me tail him. Not a bad fish really, maybe even a keeper, but it was still early in the day so I decided to send him back in hopes of finding something brighter.

And that is about the point that my catching ended (not counting whitefish). I checked out one other spot by the gate, and then worked the fields over pretty good but wasn't able to find any more steelhead. Still a great day though, 2/2 with a bright hen on the drift and a decent buck on the float!

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