We spent this past weekend in the Portland area so I couldn't see any of you down at the local creek. No, Phil, you didn't see Jon and I, unless you were on a VERY different river! Maybe we'll see some of ya on Friday or next week!
Anyway we got a bit of a late start on Saturday, and had Jon and my nephew, Ben, who absolutely loves to fish and doesn't get the opportunity all that often. We bundled up and hit the freezing river a bit before noon. I spent the first hole or so schooling Ben on how to cast my 10' 6" summer rod, mend the floating line, adust his float, etc. He picked these things up quite quickly. The next hole up is a little sleeper that I hardly ever see anyone else fish (I hooked one of last weeks fish there!). It is quite shallow, so I had Ben slide his float all the way to the weight.
Here's the play by play:
(Jeff) Ben, cast upstream there by that little bush as close as you can to the opposite bank.
(Ben) OK.
(Jeff) Keep the slack out of the line and keep an eye out right there... THERE HE IS (as the float disappears).
(Ben)
(Jeff) Turn the rod to the side, and don't point it at the fish!
(Ben)
About 15 seconds after the hookup, the little 4 lb'er was flopping on the rocks! Ben reeling like mad, backing up, eyes agog. Luckily it was a hatchery buck, so the rocks were just a foretaste of what was to come. We need to work on our fighting and landing technique, but having Ben catch his first steelhead was very exciting. Here's the proud fisherman, with his sisters white gloves (she was not happy at all about this picture!):
There were no other fish that day. I had a bobber down with nothing on the other end, even after subsequent casts, oh, well. Did I mention it was a bit nippy? Check the fishing partners out in this photo:
Gotta love getting the younguns into fish!
Jeff
