Unforcing it -or- reinforcing it

All is right with the world again. After two full days with 4 good rods plying the water (including more than a few drifts with a bobber and jig), saturday afternoon bent over and gave it up. We were supposed to be pulling the boats out right about the time I stepped into one of the best runs in the stretch. I was following through, but grabs were had on the first pass, so the confidence was flowing. I stepped into the head of the run and made my first cast with about 10 feet of skagit head still in the rod. I was fishing a heavy tip and a plastic tube fly, so a small pullback mend was key to get some sink. I made one of those and the instant the line came tight (maybe 2 seconds) I was ticking the bottom, but this didn't really make any sense with the plastic tube and all so I thought I must of started too high in the run and it was really shallow. Then the fish took the fuck off. My drag was loose since I don't carry a loop and on her first run she made quite the tidy nest of shooting line coming out of my reel. Luckily all the backlash came out clean on her second run. She did a little ass shake dance on the surface a few times and all in all put up a good tug, had me thinking she was wild. But it was a dirty little hatchery girl, chrome as hell and cut like complete ass, day old ass even. She did give up a lotta eggs, which now will be catching springers in a couple months instead of polluting the gene pool with garbage, hoo rah bitches.

As an aside, this was the most fucked up winter fish I have witnessed. The fly could not have been more than a foot and a half down, probably closer to a foot, and the line was almost perfectly perpendicular to the flow and the fish fucking schmeared that thing...I will also happily admit that it was one of the ugliest flies I have ever fished for steelhead, but it did look pretty good in the water.

if the any of the photos are decent i'll put em up tonight. until then, GO FISHING, fools.

Forcing it

So, I have been pretty sleepy around here lately. I am attributing most of this to life. As in, I have been too busy with life to post. By "busy" I certainly don't mean busy!, in fact the meaning is much closer to lazy than busy. But busy sounds better than lazy so I will stick with it. The fishing in fly department has been damned slow of late, high and cold water is a cocktail suited to the dirty mcdirts of the world and I spent too much time drinking that drink early in the winter. Two weekends in a row now I have tried to force it with the fly and while its great to be out (especially in little coastal old growth valleys), its a bit of a bitch to make things happen that don't want to. But things are warming and wanting to change for the better so I got that going for me, which is nice. Nonetheless its gettin kinda bad. I measure my distaste for the steelheading conditions in desire to fish trout, and I am really close to making some plans on that front...this is a fucking tragedy for mid February. I am not supposed to think about trout until at least April 1st, and then its really easy to just pretend its a joke. But now? I must be sick.

Soon enough the shit is gonna line up and get real good and I plan on being there for it. Til then, busy it will be.