Building Anticipation

What strange activities fill my open time this time of year. Pulling rods out of closets. Lubing reels. Winding new line. Sharpening hooks. Sorting tackle. Checking leaders. Watching weather reports and river guages. Surfing the boards. Perusing fish pictures. Writing to friends, talking steelhead. Dealing with the building anticipation. I usually set aside the fly rod this time of year as my access to good fly water is sharply limited in the high winter flows. It's still C&R, with single, barbless hooks - just a different configuration of tackle.

It will soon be here - the season of chrome torpedos. I can hardly wait and if nothing else takes over my time I plan to be out there in the cold, wet, gray Pacific Northwest living it up in pursuit of silver beauties like this one.

z~

Summer Steelhead in November

I went to the local river today to try out a new Lamiglas casting rod. I was running the stick through its paces, trying to see how far I could cast when this summer steelhead suddenly appeared and tried to crush the silver plated spoon I was throwing. Though I knew there were still some summer fish present, it is so late in the season he caught me off guard. Our summer fish don't spawn until January so there are still some in the river below the hatchery at the dam. A nice surprise and a good warmup for winter Steelhead fishing. Hope to do some of that this winter.

z~