I realized this afternoon the contrasts that fly fishing for steelhead can present. One moment is the easy sound of water slipping through partially sunken willow stems. The water curls though a mass of green wands just now beginning to show a hint of early spring. Here the water is soft and lulling in its demeanor. Down the way, a cluster of deeper shoots gently waves in the air. The afternoon wind is just now sending greetings upriver and the ripples in the flatwater of the pool below suggest that this quiet time will soon pass as I hunker down into my jacket, pull up my collar and snug up my waders. Contemplation time is over and the work begins. Across the slicks and boils of the run, a few blue wing olives struggle on the surface, harbingers of mid-day’s arrival and perhaps the time when the river comes to life.

The fly comes tight on the swing… dropping into the slicks on the far side to swim across green water speckled with small boulders faintly visible in the green water. And the grab is deliberate and solid with the fish whisking away into the backing as I grab what seems like my first breath. The immense splash and tail well above where my line arcs out and across the stream indicates a fish gone berserk. It turns back down throwing a god awful loop of slack line on the water and is seemingly gone on that one turn. But I manage to come tight again as the fish wallows across the surface far across and down. Once again, the fish turns down and my finger touches the taut backing, now like a bandsaw. Finally, the fish comes in. With racing heartbeat I remember the quiet moments of just a few minutes ago, now like another place and time. Looking around as the fish darts off, the willow stems shudder and vibrate in the currents now. Everything seems to move here.

Dear Elinor

Dreams of you. For years I’ve gazed at your sweeping curves and how you hold the light. For years, I’ve dreamed that we might someday meet up and I might know you close up and intimate. I dreamed it might be like the first time again. Sometimes I would imagine that we were together in a past life, the way you seemed to be at once familiar, but distant. To look at you from afar, was to stare across worlds of being, moments of presence that would send a shiver up my spine. But you were never easy… living on the other side of the trees. Oh sure, I tried a couple of times to come find you. Each time, though, I was denied, left to wallow in a wall of poison oak that denied me access to the waters of my desire. Oh, I know you’ve entertained many. And they come from far away to sit in your bosom but they move on, leaving you alone, empty. Oh, to find the path to your heart.

The obvious. The walk to your home should have been obvious years ago. And, this time, I immediately knew where to go.

When we met.  The fog was lingering low and thick along your length that morning. Step closer and there you were stretched before my eyes. Your are more lovely up close than I dreamed. Sparkling emerald eyes – your long, slick lines slide easily into the broken waters where fresh steelhead might lie. Lined with rubble from a nearby creek, you give home to a thousand lies. And, you call me in, beckoning me to immerse myself in your soul. Each cast-swing-step and we mumble sweet nothings to one another, and occasionally a long “mmmmmmm” is whispered. It is only with my undivided attention that you give up your secrets. Here and there, the life you hold in your heart comes to me, shining bright in the muted light of a fog-bound sun. I might count them one-by-one, or just call this morning with you one long fluid motion of your presence.  We hold one another, dance, and whisper the sweet nothings that I’ve dreamed of for years. As we go, you are better with each step. Finally, I muster the courage to leave you when the first hints of an early afternoon breeze ripple your calm waters. We turn our back, knowing full well that we will meet again soon enough.

I’ve spent 26 years yearning to catch a fish on the surface on the long, slick tail of North-South run at low flow. I don’t know why I’ve never really tried. Many a night was spent dreaming about the lay of the water here – how it eases out of the bucket and across a field of cobblestones and small boulders. At low flows, three distinct boulders give away their presence with trailing slicks. Viewed at the right angle in mid-day, the water might seem too shallow. At sunset, from the hard bank on river right, it looks like a private steelhead garden: just deep enough to hide a few secrets but shallow enough to chug a skating fly over the heads of aggressive steelhead. Anyhow, that’s what I’ve spent years fantasizing about. Why I have never put in more skating time in the lower half of that run, where swinging sunk flies rarely pays off, is beyond me. Tonite it all came together. The skating window in mid-September seems to be on the order of 20 minutes. The sun is well over the hill and “true sunset” where the sun is dipping over some ocean horizon out west is most likely at hand. The light casts a golden hue across the surface of the water. This seems to be the 20 minutes when day turns to evening – it’s the start of something and it really doesn’t announce it’s coming. Somewhere along the way, stare at the water’s surface and it glows golden – it’s that simple.

Work down through the run skating and chugging a god-awful concoction of deer hide, elk and foam. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. Again and again, the little vee wake and splashes give away the fly’s presence on the long cast two thirds of the way across. This is not sleepy time work since the fly must be kept alive at all times. This is the most engaging fishing of all. The dressed hook is connected by a thin line 80 feet long to me via rod and reel. It’s my job to impart some sense of life to this thing – is it the skittering, fearful critter? Might it be a wondering, exploring, curious creature of both land and river? Pick a mood and stick with it.

The take is violent and will replay in slow motion in my memory for days. The large fish seems to curl around the fly, half out of the water, sending a splash sounding like a piglet falling into the water. The hook sets, the fish goes airborne and the line goes limp with a charge towards me. Dancing backwards along the cobble-strewn bank, the light comes tight and the reel churns out line with a clicker now whining with high speed discharge of line in a hurry. Hold tight for another several seconds before the line goes limp and the fish comes unbuttoned.

This fish was 26-years in the making. Let’s hope the next one comes a little sooner.

Water temperature: 18.2 C

Discharge: 650 cfs

Note that McMillan’s data suggest that optimal skating temps are in the neighborhood of 8C to 15C with his observations declining at 18 – so many skating days lie ahead!!!!!

Somewhere between afternoon and dark, the light casts a golden glow across the slick water. Try not to hurry and the 15 minutes of sweet light and sudden stillness will etch into memory as an eternal evening. Is this the moment when the river holds its breath? Or is this a long exhale into night?

Skate a fly across the surface.. right there in the slick water behind the submerged bedrock. Once, twice, then the quick, long flash of a swiping steelhead. It won’t even touch the fly or break the water, and now I’m hunched over wondering if it ever really happened. Keep at it and another fish farther down slices through the surface, its silver side casting a glow in the evening light. For real. But, somehow, it all seems like a fantasy in the eternal place between light and dark…

After raising two nice fish at Little Argentina last night but missing hook sets, I decided to up the ante with surface attraction and pure buggy ugliness. Mission accomplished at sunset on upper North-South. There seems to be a 30-minute window right now when larger steelhead are prone to crushing things skittering across the surface. More precisely: the sound of a small toilet flushing fast. Two fish landed with a hot, bright chromer taken on the long, slick tail of North-South. Any steelhead taken on top is an extra-special fish. As the line spilled into the backing, all I could do was lean back, look up and laugh. One fish on top is worth ten swinging underneath.

The first fish, always exciting, extra-special and often unexpected, can always be enamored with “hard-earned”, “worked-for”, “overdue”, or some such portrayal of time and effort. When it’s the first fish of the season, it’s like reconnecting with a long gone friend in the way familiar and new can intertwine. When it’s on one of those I’ll-drive-over-and-just-check-things-out kind of evenings it suddenly fits perfectly into some grand script only vaguely remembered. When it bests my record for earliest adult steelhead caught in this river, it stands worthy of note if only because time itself demands some recognition of movement.

A pulse of water over the last few days measurably cooled off a river that wilts in the oppressive heat of late summer. I decided to swing a floating line and a classic low-water spey modeled after the Lady Caroline changed up with pheasant rump wing and hackle in a more orange shade. One of those setups that feels classy anyd cool – the way steelhead are meant to be fished for.

The first fish barely gave me enough time to get back into the casting groove and settle into the rhythm of the river. The hard tugging boil, a clicking reel and for a moment there’s a bit of disbelief this is all really happening. I get it in quickly, grab a quick photo and wonder what’s next. I fish down past the bucket, into water I rarely connect in, despite it’s fishy appeal. I’ve stood here easily a hundred times and the line is always the same – one more step and swing and I’m outta here. That’s when it all happens again, the soild tug, boil and a broad flash of silver across the surface before it all goes slack. Whoa.
Always save the top of upper N-S for when the light is just right. Don’t fish it too early, the water is too skinny to chance spooking fish. Do one pass through and make it count. Halfway through, the fish is into the backing before the next breath. Lift into it and it turns upstream, lunging heavy and surely through the fast water – the sound of line peeling through the water. Working it over to the shallows and the fish comes unbuttoned – simple as that.

That’s when the much sought after steelhead shakes start to creep in. It’s hard to maintain composure and calm in these situations – like 32 ounces of espresso delivered directly into a nervous system now on edge. But that would be the last grab of the evening. A first night out, a familiar place and a fish that will be remembered for the rest of the year.

August 12 and the first fall steelhead are showing at customary places in the valley. I’ve been intermittently snorkeling a couple of reaches: watching the spring run Chinook move up as the flows dropped in early July. I saw my first steelhead in late July – two adults skirting around me in the faster water. Today a pair sat on a tailout in the broad heat of the day – I could have duped one of them with a skating fly at dark if I had brought a rod and waited it out – but no regrets – plenty of time. Otherwise, a couple of fish were spotted in the faster water where spotting was difficult. Typical smaller adults, but the harbinger of the upcoming fall. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for a cool down for a couple of days to bring on more comfortable water temperatures. August 19 is my magic day when a weak front passed over, cooling things down and unleashing a wave of biting fish. Thus, we sit one week away from the potential kickoff of fall steelhead season. Maybe sooner, maybe later. Much summer still looms. Will do another snorkel pass next week and see how things are progressing….

Of note was the fact that the fish were holding in faster water – not surprising, but I didn’t see fish in the belly of the runs where I’ve come accustomed to focusing effort. These high lies probably reflect water temperature and need for cover and my own desire to fish the “easier” water in the bucket of the run.

Again, it’s the kind of water that calls you to it. The river is a deep, mysterious milky green, that seems to glow in the early morning light. This is water where big, silvery fish can move about hidden in the greenish shadows, true ghosts of the river. Everything seems to move here. The river hums along with some urgency. A hurried electricity fills the air. My heart rate won’t slow down. A fish rolls in the deep slot and, again, I spend too much time trying to swing a fly down deep when I should be walking to the broader swing waters below. I finally yield the water to a drift boat coming down. It’s as good of a motivation as any. Later, on my hike out, they float by me and inform me that they had gotten five fish out of that hole. They thank me again for letting them fish though.

The first fish comes as if it were some logical extension of the morning – just a continuation of the electricity that hangs in the air. The channel splits with half the river tracing slots along each bank – take your pick. The fish sits along a bedrock knob that juts out of the channel. The green water just seems to intensify and a sustained heart rate seems to hasten things along, not helping a festering impatience. Every cast is deliberate, each heart beat felt, with the morning becoming one long, wicked moment teetering between craving and satisfaction.

Further down river, I break a fish off on a bad knot – actually an old knot that I should have retied before even rigging up. Lesson learned for the 63^rd time. A couple taps doing the long swing through the tail out then down to the long run where the valley walls pinch the river close. Here the river briefly turns to the northeast with the sun barely peeking over the hills. Water sounds echo off the valley walls making for a full and sustained hiss and a dripping seep on the far bank keeps the beat. This is like having a private steelhead room. Sheltered, dimly lit, and 150 yards of textbook swing water set in a rapturous chorus of moving water that never stops. My heart rate settles down. A rhythm is established. Home on a mid-winter river.