What a great day to chase steelhead, looked out the front windows to see a very low overcast, and a few rain drops. The plan was to leave the house at 11:30am and have the lines in the water by 12:30pm. Launched the boat at Couse Creek and cruised down river a couple of miles to a good section of water for backtrolling, pointed the bow upriver, scented the plugs, and baited with marinated shrimp (single hook dropper from the belly hook position).

Not another fisherman in sight, should be a good day, at least that is what we thought. Made a slow pass that took about a hour without so much as a bump, pulled the lines in and went back to the start of the drift for another pass. Ambient temp. is 47*, river temp. is now down to 48.5*, it is starting to rain lightly, but is still comfortable. We are about ten minutes into the drift and Barb's rod suddently bends double, and a beautiful steelhead comes blasting out of the water about sixty feet behind the boat, it put up a good fight for about ten minutes, she slid it into the net, we took a quick picture, got it back in the water, and watched it swim away.

Continued fishing for another hour or so without another hit, one take down and one steelhead, some days are just like that, but even with the light bite, it was a wonderful afternoon. It gets dark in the canyon at about 4:00pm, we pullled the lines in at 3:30, when we pulled the boat out it was almost dark, hope to get back on the water tomorrow. Ken & Barb

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