Michael Westra and Liam from New Jersey joined me today on this “Black Friday”-the first official day of the holiday shopping season. It would seem that there was a fair number of steelhead shoppers on the river today which was by far the busiest day on the river we have had since the end of the salmon season. This was Liam’s first river steelhead trip and he was able to learn that this fishing is a “pay your dues sport”. Liam hooked one beautiful steelhead in the afternoon only to anchor it fully in his memory as the one that got away. Mike, a seasoned angler spending his time in up-state New York fishing the Salmon River was quite impressed by the ease of fishing from a boat since all of his previous steelhead trips had dawned waders.
Steelhead are transitioning to softer water as the temps are now flirting with the upper thirty’s. Small egg patterns of nearly every color are bringing fish though baby pink and clown patterns along with Oregon cheese and chartreuse are tops in my boat. Today was the first time this fall where the chrome seemed to take a few casts to entice. This may have been due to the volume of fisherman today on the water. Pictured is Mike with a great male from this afternoon.
Tight lines,
Capt. Steven Kuieck
