Looking across the river at the canyon walls there is a blanket of low clouds at the top with patchy fog in the ravines, and no wind, it's a pretty sight to wake up to, perfect Steelheading weather. The plan today is to go in the afternoon, or evening, the water level is usually a foot or two higher in the mornings, the current decreases in the afternoon, this generally makes it better for back trolling.

We get the boat hooked up and at 1:30pm, and head for the launch site, I back the trailer in and Barb powers the boat off the trailer, she then picks me up from the shoreline, we point the bow upriver, maneuver through a narrow, shallow channel, go through a couple of small rapids and arrive at one of our favorite stretches of water. Barb holds the boat stationary while I get the trolling motor started, TR-1 AutoPilot engaged, plugs, leaders are smeared with a marinate scent concoction that I mix up, dyed shrimp is attached to the belly hooks.

We have barley put the lines out, maybe three minutes, when the action on my rod tip stops, it then starts to slowly bend back, looks like I'm hung up on the bottom, I glance at the shoreline, the boat is moving downstream so it couldn't be hung up. The rod tip then comes back to normal with the plug action showing, it then bumps back about a foot, I tell Barb "we have a steelhead hitting", the steelhead hits four or five more times in about a one minute period, then it takes a sharp bend back, and I take the rod out of the holder with the feel of a strong fish.

The steelhead is stripping out a lot of line going downriver, and out toward the middle, I look at my reel, and see that the backing is peeling out. The fish feels really heavy and strong, I tell Barb "Wow, this is areally big fish". The fish has a lot of line stripped out, but am making some headway at getting it closer, the runs are getting shorter, but he is still a long way out in the river. We have drifted down to a sandbar, the plan is to beach the boat on the sandbar, which has a big eddy, and play the fish from there. We then nose the boat into the sandbar, the TR-1 holds the boat in place as we continue to play this steelhead.

I can feel a lot of head shaking, and then it starts to roll, I tell Barb we will be lucky if we land it. Finally get it to the outer edge of the eddy, it rolls on the surface coming partially out of the water, we see a big fish with a broad tail and a rainbow red stripe down it's side. The fish is getting tired, Barb is standing on the swim platform with the net ready, I get it near the boat, reel the rod tip down to the water surface, put my thumb on the spool and lift him up, Barb slides the net under him, we have done it, what a Steelhead this is.

We use a large knotless net with a flat bottom, which is like having the fish in a barrel. I remove the plug, then let the fish revive. We admire the fish, and talk about how lucky we were to land it, after about ten minutes we lift him out of the water, take a picture and release him. We weighed him in the net, then subtracted the net weight, he was 18.2 pounds (hatchery).

We are still shaking and excited when we start the next drift to get Barb a fish, we were expecting to get another quick takedown, forty five minutes go by, then Barb's rod takes a sharp bend and starts to throb. She grabs it out of the holder, in a couple of minutes a beautiful silver Hen Steelhead comes completely out, what a sight. This is a smaller fish, and has a lot of fight, she comes out of the water two more times before we land her.

This has really been a great evening of fishing here in Hell's Canyon, we get the rods put away, pour a cup of coffee, relaxing and floating down the river, talking mostly about the big steelhead, and how lucky we are to be here. Ken & Barb

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