February Fishing

Friday came and almost went but we hit the road heading down South to do some Steelheading on a couple of the rivers a hop, skip and Jump from Uniontown, Washington.

Snow above the river. Good fishing!

We worked over the gear until late evening, our wake up call was set for 4:00 AM. 

We woke up a bit groggy and tossed down some coffee and oatmeal.  Our gear was then transported to Tom's truck and the four of us loaded in, willing, if not ready for our drive to the river.  The destination was somewhere on the Grand Ronde in Washington.  We have fished it before and so we were eager to get to the water and start snapping things down.

The river was a bit high, a little murky and a whole bunch of cold.  We fished hard the entire day and in the end we had hooked eight steelhead, landing four of them.  I hooked one and landed it, a wild one, so I set it free.  All four of the fish landed were wild so we came home meatless.

On the drive home we stopped at the store and picked up dinner.  As we ate our chicken dinner, we watched "The Big Lebowski" and laughed.  Gear was re-set and ready for the morning so we hit the sack to get some sleep.

This wild one hit the bead!

Sunday brought a 5:00 AM wake-up call.  We were moving slower this morning. Not much conversation, a lot of grunting, but not much stimulating conversation.  We loaded up and drove down to the Clearwater.  This river was much clearer, but the air temperature was colder then up the Rhonde. 

We hit the water before the sun did.  Casting was crazy!  Every cast you had to get the ice off the rod eyes.  It took a bit to get the hang of it, but within the hour we were casting and dragging with our usual efficiency.

Last fish of the day for Tyler.

I fished down the water for a couple hours, and the sun came up over the mountains warming the air.  I turned up river and tossed my bobber and jig up into a slower area where two currents came together and boom.  I hooked up on a beauty!  She ran and fought like you expect a Steelhead to do.  In the end I got her in close and Mark noted that she was a hatchery fish, what we call a keeper! We got her landed and up on shore.  Tom came over and we measured it up to get a calculation for weight.  She measured 33 inches and Mark calculated her weight a 12.65 pounds. Nice, real nice!

We fished till about 11:00 AM and moved to another run.  By 1:00 PM I was beat and so I took a break.  The sun was out so I stretched out in the rocks and fell fast asleep.  The sun was out and it was warm so what did you expect? 

This girl came home with us, she couldn't resist the jig.

After about an hour and a half I was back at it, casting and not catching.  We fished into the afternoon but we didn't hook another fish.  I had a good record for the weekend.  I went 2 for 2, landing and releasing one and landing and keep another.  Would like to have hit more fish, but fishing Steelhead is not ever an easy endevor.

We drove back to Uniontown and packed all our gear.  We arrived in Coeur d'Alene at about 6:30 PM and I was home and unpacking by a little after 7:00 PM.  I was beat, even with the nap.  A good weekend of fishing in the books I hugged Linda, patted Kobi and went to bed.