After few unsuccessful attempts I have finally succeeded at lending a Steelhead past Saturday. I did take a good look back at my "steelhead attempts" and took a little different approach which in return paid off. By now I know there is no better bait that a spawn sac and a steelhead egg spawn sac especially. The fresher the eggs the better. I have made several attempts at steelhead a few weekends in a row with a fly rod. I have seen many anglers hooking up beautiful fish using a spinning rod and a float using spawn sacks. Of course I have seen a couple of guys successful with a jig and a maggot, but you can't help to steer more towards the spawn sacs especially after fishing next to a guy who gets a hook up almost at every cast. I was dumbfounded and looked with a obvious disbelieve at him running nothing but spawn sacs under his 7 ounce float. Of course we were at this really "hot spot" but no matter what I have tried it did not produce anything other that defeat and "ENVY".
And so I came back home with my pride tarnished and started thinking. The first thing I did was to throw away my old spawn sacs. I went to DICKS's and bought some red and orange salmon eggs and some additional chartreuse netting to make my own new spawn sacs. I have made several sacs in two different sizes in orange, pink, chartreuse and white. But them in "CLEAN" medicine bottles and place them in the fridge for a couple of days. I have also made several leaders with double hooks and egg loop knots on each of them. Then come Saturday I went to the river. It was freaking cold, but with a little cold weather experience I've got from previous winter I manged to dress very appropriately. My new 3.5 mm neoprene boot legged with 1000 mg insulation are a blast. With a merino wool socks on I've managed to stand in the water for about 5 hours with no problem. While other anglers kept on taking worm up brakes on the bank I've kept on casting. It was about 27 degrees that morning and I've had very low expectations on catching anything. I know that fish in that weather wait until about 11 am to start biting. But to my surprise the guy (the wizard I've met a week before at the same fishing hole) next to me started hooking up some serious fish. After about and hour I hooked up a beautiful small hen about 17 inch long. I did land it with my net took a picture and let it go back in the water to a surprise of a fellow angler. You would be so surprised at some of the reason that people keep the fish they catch. I did actually wonder at the "legality" of some of them, but because they all kept just the limit of 2 I did not question what they did with them. I have spent the next 2 hours casting and assisting my "neighbors" with my net as they did have problems with landing their catches. Then the fish "shut off" suddenly. I guess water temperature has a lot to did with that. Then about 11 I did hook up a nice buck, somewhere in the range of 30 inches, but I could not land it do to the fact that my reel got wet a while earlier and the drag was useless, and without a good drag it is very hard to do land this fish. But I was excited anyway and called it a day - a good day that is. The biggest and most important thing I've learned that day? - If you fish with a spinning reel in temperatures below freezing mark - keep it dry at all time or it will cost you your reel and the fish. The drag will stop engaging the the anti-reverse mechanism will be useless as well. Perform occasional maintenance of your rods and reels. Use chopstick or ice-of paste such as Stanley's Ice-off paste to keep line guides from freezing. This will obstruct your casting to virtually impossible. Ice-off paste will keep it ice free for about 1 hour which is great considering it would take only few casts without it to ice up the guides. Until next time - TIGHT LINES EVERYBODY!!
