Woke up to a heavy overcast in the canyon, a lot of fog about 400' up, dead calm, and can see a boat across the river making a slow backtroll. About half way through our first cup of coffee Barb asked if we were going to go fishing today, at that time I was wishing I was out there, so of course I said "sounds good to me", I think she really wanted to get on the water, so we set the departure time at high noon. I headed for the shop to marinate some shrimp, sharpen hooks and change out leaders, half the fun is getting ready to go.

Well we headed for the Couse Creek Launch again, and as usual, could not use the concrete ramp due to shallow water so we launched off the gravel bar, which is no problem. Put the boat on plane and headed down river, going through a rapid, and enjoying the fall colors we pulled the boat off plane in front of our home, there is a stretch of water here that is usually pretty productive. The river is like glass, not another fisherman in sight, we scent the plugs, attach a marinated red shrimp, and start a slow backtroll, about twenty minutes has passed when Barb's rod explodes with a Steelhead on. she yells "I've got one on", grabs her rod while the fish is stripping out line, it is about eighty feet out when it comes boiling out of the water, still stripping line it heads for the shore line, and comes out of the water again, about two feet from the shore. then Barb starts to gain some line, she got the fish near the boat, and it makes another hard run, the fight lasted for about twenty minutes, then I slid the net under one of the prettiest Steelhead we have seen, took a quick picture, then watched it swim away.

Fished for another couple of hours, Barb caught a nice Channel Cat that went aroud five pounds, and a couple of hits without hookups. Started to get pretty dim in the canyon, so we called it a day and headed for home. Ken & Barb

---