My constant companion Barb is conducting her weekly bible class today, so I invited a good friend "John", to go fishing today.

I met John last year at the barber shop, the topic of the day was fishing for Steelhead, well it turned out that john had been fishing for steelhead for a couple of years, but had never caught anything, or even had one on, the more we talked the worse I felt for John, he had been tossing whatever he thought might work, but nothing did, all he accomplished was to get cold. I felt so sorry for John that I asked him if he would like to go with me, and maybe catch his first Steelhead. Well John accepted the invite and we decided on a time.

John arrived at my home early in the morning of the day we had decided on, Tuesday the day of Barb's ladie's bible class ( no coincident ), the one day of the week that she does not go with me. Since John is not going to be using any of his own fishing gear, we go to the shop where the boat is kept, and I go over the gear we will be using, and the general procedure of what we will be doing on the water, John is getting pretty excited, and I am thinking to myself, " man I sure hope we get a don't get skunked ", while telling John that this will be his big day of catching his first Steelhead.

The launch is about four miles away, we put the boat in the water, all conditions look good, the boat comes up on plane and we are off to one of my favorite holes. We get the lines in the water, in no less than five minutes John's rod gets a hard jerk, and just about bends double, I am trying to give John instructions on getting the rod out of the holder, he has a heavy fish on and it is really tugging, then my rod just about explodes, and we have a double on. So it turned out that I lost my fish, which was probably for the better, because John's first Steelhead was a fifteen pounder and took a long time to land. I forget how many hookups we had that day, but will not forget John's first Steelhead.

Well this is yesterday, John arrives, I have the boat hooked up and everything is ready to go, so we are off to the launch. Put the boat in at Couse Creek, and head upriver, go a couple of miles past Buffalo Eddy to a nice stretch of water for backtrolling, start the honda up and start a slow backtroll. I tell John the fish have been hitting very light, and not to set the hook until the rod takes a bend that looks like a fish on. In about ten minutes my rod starts to get a tap, tap,tap, then the tip bends back about a foot, then nothing, then it starts again, I carefully lift the rod out of the holder and do exactly what I had told John not to do, I strike too soon and miss the fish. After kicking myself, I pull in and put a fresh shrimp on, and get the line back in.

In about fifteen minutes John yells " I've got one on ", he comes jumping out of the boat cabin with one leg dragging a pair of insulated pants he was putting on, the fish is stripping out line, and John is very excited to say the least, but he manages to get the rod out of the holder, I steer the boat toward the middle of the river, so we will not pass over and spook the fish on the water we are fishing, then I help him untangle his leg from the pants he was trying to put on, boy you never know what events the day will hold. John is playing the fish, I am trying to manouver the boat to keep the line away from the trolling motor, this is a nice Steelhead and makes several runs before netting, beautiful fish, lots of color, and a very happy John ( see picture on the left ).

We go back to the start of the run, in about twenty minutes my rod starts to get a nibble, this time I leave it in the holder, after a few slight pulls it starts a steady pull, and I set the hook, in ten minutes or so John slides the net under another beautiful Steelhead. We make several passes without another hit. John has to get a tire repaired for a snowmobile trailer, so we decide to call it a day. River temp. was 36.8* , ambient temp. 50*, no wind, overcast, what a day to be on the river in Hell's Canyon. Ken

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