Yesterday was A little overcast with the sun coming out occasionally, very calm, crispy cool, perfect Steelhead weather.

Barb sets the time to go fishing at high noon, I have sharpened all the hooks, replaced the 12# fluorocarbon leaders, sealed a leak in my hip boots, looked over the rest of the gear, time to go fishing.

We launch the boat at Couse Creek, then put the boat on plane headed upriver five or six miles, we are going to fish a drift that we have not fished this year. The water is moving pretty slow, on a day when the wind is blowing upriver it is difficult to backtroll, the breeze will move the boat upriver, but it is dead calm today. There's some very good holding spots here, the main channel is about ten feet deep, tapers up abruptly on the Wash. side, and gently on the Idaho side, and is about 250 yards long.

We get the boat situated at the top of the drift, apply scent to the plugs, put out sixty feet of line, and start a slow backtroll. We are about a third of the way down the drift when a big Steelhead slams Barb's lure, bends her rod double with throbbing pulls. She wrestles to rod out of the holder, the fish strips line out, then makes a run toward the boat, I speed up the motor to keep ahead of the fish, and line out of the prop. It makes another run down river, never surfaces, stays right on bottom. The Steelhead finally surfaces on it's side ten feet behind the boat, this is a gorgeous wild one, absolutely beautiful, I slide net under him, remove the barbless hooks as gently as I can, Barb snaps a quick picture, and we watch him swim away.

Barb checks her leader for abrasions, it's ok. We are about half way down the drift, so we just put the lines back out, nearing the end of the drift I hear some noise from my rod holder, I look over and another Steelhead is jerking the rod. I yell "Fish On", take the rod out of the holder, and the fight is on, fells like a pretty big fish, doing a lot of head shaking, I can feel his tail hitting the leader as he tries to swim away. This one stayed deep and fought hard before Barb netted him. Beautiful fish with a lot of color, he weighed in at 12#, the one Barb just caught was about the same size. I will probably never match Barb's 18.5 pounder, but will keep trying.

We make two more passes get two take downs without hooking up, it's amazing how they can hit a plug with sticky sharp hooks, and not get stuck.

It has been a wonderful day on the river, time to go home pour a couple of glasses of wine, give thanks and think about how lucky we are.

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