Day Two of our Wells Pool steelheading adventure with Shane Magnusen of Upper Columbia Guide Service. After a relaxing stay at the Lake Pateros Motor Lodge we loaded up and met Shane for a leisurely morning breakfast and then off fishing at 7:15am. I could get used to this fishery – walk to the restaurant for breakfast, walk to the boat ramp, no getting up at 4am, this is pretty sweet!

Today Shane showed us some fishing locations on the Methow River. We motored up about a quarter mile and started fishing a deep slot that runs along the shoreline. Shane explained that depending on the Columbia flows the location could be good or a bust. Within a few minutes we hooked and released a beautiful and feisty 8 pound native. One thing Shane told us that was that because the Methow is about 10 degrees cooler than the Columbia the fish are more energentic, he says due to better water oxygenation. That held true with this fish, which made several 2-3 foot jumps into the air. Ditto our next fish that was a hatchery keeper. Shane reminded us that fish caught in the Methow are mandatory catch and keep if they are hatchery fish.

The Methow hole slowed down after that so moved out and fished briefly in front of the bridge and hotel docks. We saw one dock angler catch and release a native, but it was dead for us. Next stop, we tried the main Columbia hole that had produced so well yesterday. Unfortunately, there was a private boat trolling up and down the hole. After trying a couple drifts Shane moved us to another location that we had caught a couple fish at.

We started our drift pattern as the wind died off and the sun started to shine. Prior to this it had been a bit “nippy” but now it was getting really nice out. I looked around at the amazing scenery and reflected that there were only three boats in a two mile radius from where we were fishing. Consider also, only a 3 ½ hour drive from Seattle. Pretty amazing and lightly pressured fishery!

I cast out and watched my float drift… drift… drift – float down! After a good fight (the fish were definitely more energetic today than yesterday) Shane slipped the net under my fish. This began an hour of an amazing steelhead bite. Between the three of us we caught four and released a native, as well as had several more take downs. I have not had that good of steelhead fishing in one spot over such a short amount of time – ever. Aaron had one fish go airborne and spit the jig 10 feet from the boat, pretty cool to see anyway.

We ended the day at 1pm and brought home our boat limit of six steelhead, making that 12 fish in two days for our boat (Shane fished each day).

If you want to get in on some amazing fishing, Shane has openings and says now is the best time to get some prime eating steelhead. He fishes this area into March, but reports that by then, although there are more fish around, they aren’t in as good eating condition. All I can say is there are plenty of fish around right now! Considering all our coho rivers in Western Washington are getting shut down, this is an excellent opportunity to go out and “feel the tug”.

Give Shane a call at or check out his web site, Upper Columbia Guide Service and go get some beautiful steelhead!