Gone Fishin'

 

The weekend before last called for beautiful sunny days and 50 degrees in the valley, and Don invited us down to go steelhead fishing on the river.  This is a hobby Don and Andy have shared for years, but one I hadn't joined in on yet.  Usually it's miserably cold and rainy during steelhead season and you spend as much time as possible huddled next to a heater, so we couldn't pass up a chance to try it on a near-spring day!

Here are the guys, trading off the trolling motor duties:

  

 

Don knows all the fishing holes, and he and his fishing buddies have named them things like Blackberry (the hills are covered with bushes here), Wrist Watch (one was lost in the river here), Shipwreck (there used to be an old wooden boat on the beach here), Little Buck Hole (a young buck was often sighted here), and Satellite (once upon a time the house on the hill had a huge satellite dish here).  I thought it was so cool how they've mapped out the river with stories and landmarks.

The fishing technique involved letting the line out with these colorful little fish on the end, which they called "plugs".  They dive when the current catches them.

Then you wait and wait and wait for the pole to bend nearly in half with the weight of an angry steelhead.  Andy tells me that they don't mistake these lures for food, they attack them out of defense.  I guess they don't like shiny little fish swimming in their bubble!
We waited for less than an hour at the first  hole before one line went berserk.  Andy was there in a flash, setting the hook and calling me to reel it in.  I was all set to take pictures, but he let me do the reeling in and showing off!  I guess it's on the small side of average for steelhead, but it's the biggest fish I've ever caught! :)

After this, Don and Andy made sure I realized that steelhead fishing is actually pretty slow.  You motor up and drift down the holes multiple times, and so far they haven't caught more than two fish in a whole day!  So, I settled down and tried to patiently watch the poles.
I was a little distracted by these crosses on one of the hills, and had to wonder when I read what they said.  The one on the left: "In Memory of Mickey"  and the one on the right: "In Memory of Minnie".  Sounds like some cute mice met their fate here...

Then I played around with the camera just a little...

And, about the time we were all zoning out, I looked over at the pole I'd baited and let out and right then it took a dive!  Somehow, I guess I absorbed the fishing instinct as we waited because I was reeling it in before the fellows knew what happened!  Boy, was I excited to call this one all mine!  It was almost exactly the same size as the first one, and a keeper as well (you have to throw back the wild ones, and can only keep hatchery fish).
After that, I relaxed and figured I'd caught my fish for the day.  We fished some more, then started our slow route back down the river, stopping at unoccupied holes to fish.  There is a place called Buffalo Eddy, which is an eddy in the river but also has an old building up on the hill and a great rocky shore. 

We banked the boat here to walk around, stretch our legs and look for lost lures washed up on shore.

Andy did find one slightly beat-up lure, but was more excited about some cool driftwood for a duck mount (think taxidermy), and the discovery of this nearly whole crawfish.

 

 Then, a walk through the nearby trees had him contemplating space on the boat for this:

Surprised, aren't ya?

It turns out that the property isn't public anymore, so we left the rusty treasure behind and fished another hour or two before the sun went behind the hills and the chilly wind had us motoring for home.