Sunday, March 27, 2011

my first steelhead this spring

Even though the Root River is still flowing high and wide, conditions this weekend were ideal for fishing the smaller rivers in the area. The last batch of rain did the river systems well by bringing in a fair amount of fresh chromers. Even though pressure was extremely heavy on these smaller rivers this weekend, all anglers still had a chance of hooking up with at least one good fish. Orange seems to be a good choice for color. Spawn was key for taking larger fish from the deeper pools while most of the action on the gravel was from the smaller males.

Earlier this year, I decided to try and become alittle more proficient with my drifting techniques (especially egg patterns). Last year, I really did a lot of my fishing with streamers and I’m just wanting to invest more time in drifting. Friday night I tied some small glo-bugs and I think they are a pretty realistic imitation on a size fourteen hook.

I fished a lot of the more subtle pocket water because the deeper pools had some serious heavy traffic in the morning. I hooked a smaller male early in the day that came unbuttoned on the surface. Around lunch time pressure died down and I got a chance to fish some of the better runs. A few casts to some deeper water was all it took to hook up on a much better fish. My little orange egg worked and after seeing many fish kept I realesed my first steelhead of the year…

my first steelhead of spring

9 comments:

  1. Great fish guys. It is often quite fun exploring some of the smaller streams when conditions are right. Pretty fish!

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  2. Great fish!!! Steelhead are so pretty! I'm hoping to get into some this year.

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  3. Nice work blake. I'm pretty sure I saw you out there yesterday, I should have stopped to say hello, but as you said there was some serious pressure and I was trying to squeeze in whatever spots were open. I managed two fish and my buddy Bret also put two on the beech! This fish are in if you know where to look.

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  4. Thanks guys...

    Anthony, our paths will cross again!

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  5. Great fish blake! Is 14 the main size you tie

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  6. 14 is downsizing from what I was using last year. So far so good.

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  7. Beautiful fish guys...
    I love it when I hear someone is trying new techniques or wanting to improve on an old one.
    Thanks for the look.

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  8. When I saw the picture of the egg patter, I seriously thought you were joking-- That the "egg" was your first steelhead of the year! LOL

    I am glad that I read your whole post and saw you guys did actually get into so early season steel.

    Beautiful fish.

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