First fall fish

**Jgoding** · 09-26-2010, 09:20 AM

Had the pleasure of passing through some infamous steelhead waters this morning..... This fish surprised me, off the water before 8am.

Fish was 7" wide at the shoulders.

**Mark Kranhold** · 09-26-2010, 11:24 AM

What a way to start a sunday

. Good for you, was that on the A? Beautiful fish.

**BillB** · 09-26-2010, 02:28 PM

What a beauty! Looks like the picture definition of 'chrome'.

**Paul B.** · 09-26-2010, 05:17 PM

Holy smokes! She's a stout looking thing. Congrats.

**Bill Kiene semi-retired** · 09-26-2010, 08:01 PM

Wowoooooeeee!

That is a smoken hot looking fish.

Too cool......

Beats watching TV?

**Jgoding** · 09-27-2010, 08:20 AM

Yeah, I caught that one on the American, on top. Lost a nice one Saturday evening too probably around 20". Fish shook it's head violently til the fly popped out so I had to redeem myself. This fish was around 22" and was as wide as my hand at the shoulders which I measured at 7" and she opened up my hook pretty well too on one strong run where I put a little too much pressure (I'm assuming), and she got into the weed bed at the end and I thought for sure I was gonna lose it but luckily I waded out quickly and kicked her out of there and she was pretty much done after that. I did land it quickly (2 mins probably) and she swam off immediately when I carried her past the weeds and put her in the water.

Current observations, lack of fish activity (besides smolts and lots of baby squaws) is a little disapointing when all the caddis are coming off and there was a steady mayfly hatch in the morning (small ones) but I didn't see one fish rise all morning. Also, some dragonfly got lucky too as I saw something plop in the water wading back and luckily it's path intercepted my hand right before the rapids, I guess he was a little cold still. Later on at the house where I see these two dragonflies (I assumed were mating) flew into the garage and landed on a shelf. I went to see what was going on and it was a blue darner eating another smaller dragonfly....pretty amazing and I couldn't believe the darner was still able to fly because all it's wings looked like sawblades they were so jagged and beat up.

**Darian** · 09-27-2010, 09:41 AM

Maybe your Blue Darner was a mini helicopter.... (new, secret military weapon)

I've wondered how Dragons fly with the heavy body and flat wing surface. certainly doesn't see very aerodynamic..... I gotta admit, they're quick, colorful and fun to watch....

**Jgoding** · 09-27-2010, 09:55 AM

Yeah, it was amazing because half of each wing was probably missing on the backside and were just shredded but it carried that other dragonfly in there and it wasn't that much smaller. Only thing left on the shelf when I checked back was the skinny abdomen and some wings. Never seen dragonfly cannibalism though but my brother said darners will target the smaller species.