Since he had never fly fished, today was a whole new deal for Joe on the Muskegon River. In short order, though, he got his cast and drift down , and bang! A skipper steelhead took a liking to Joe’s offering, and out of the water it popped. Soon, into the net it went—Joe’s first fly rod fish, a pretty young chromer. Great job, Joe!
Meanwhile, Drew proved a glutton for punishment—most notably, one hour and twenty minutes worth of 25 lb. buck Chinook that lodged a PM Stone neatly the corner of his mouth. Again, as we’ve mentioned in previous posts, the challenge with these outsized fish is turning and lifting them when they’ve tired so as to be able to net them. As with 26 lb. king we boated last week, it was a combination of Drew’s skill with the rod and any number of dodged bullets, such as fly line hooked on my jet drive shoe and a bunch of ramming the rod tip into the waters with Drew’s running to the from and back of the boat numerous times to prevent blowing up the 10 weight rod! In short, it was a battle and fish Drew, Joe, and I will long remember.
Joe has his chances with the kings, too, a double with Drew and one of which took us way down river only to have the hook slip free.
All in all, quite the memorable day with two great guys.
Captain Tom Kuieck
