Evolution of a Steelheader...........

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Bill - Phase 6 might be just being happy to be out in these wild and scenic places and if you get a fish it is an extra. I can think of very few trips where I have had a bad time and wished I had not gone and many of those trips have been fishless and grabless. But that pull, in whatever form is truly awesome!!! At the end of the year I will be able to do it full time!!!!

Hi Rick

We just had a lovely trip to the lower Rogue River.

On this message board we got lots of very good recommendations for places to stay, places to eat, things to do and places to fish.

The water was a little warm so I guess the fish were laying deep in the fast runs with the salmon or went upstream.

Even though fishing was slow I enjoyed wading in a beautiful river, casting my 12'6" #6 Spey rod with a floating head, long tapered leader and unweighted classic wet fly.......................tied and given to me by Jason Hartwick.

**When you get retired and out on the road with your rig you need to report in to our board weekly so I can live vicariously through your adventures....YOU DOG.

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[pvsprme]

I agree that it's all about the pull or the take. I propose there's another step, few have reached it, but this man is the best example I know of.
http://www.drakemag.com/back-issues/...-guardian.html

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I agree that it's all about the pull or the take. I propose there's another step, few have reached it, but this man is the best example I know of.
http://www.drakemag.com/back-issues/...-guardian.html

Robert, Thanks for posting this wonderful article......we all need to read it.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Is Phase 7 wanting a jet sled so that you can stay down low on the Klamath and hook into fresh fish late Summer and early Fall? I completely enjoy Phase 6. I look forward to January 1 every season, if I could spend three months living on the coast chasing Winter Steelhead I'd do it but I'm not as close to that as Rick J I've got about 12 more years!

Last winter I hooked into an absolute beast of a Winter Steelhead on the Mattole, I could literally see the waves crashing at the mouth from where I was. Needless to say in the celebration of hooking into the fish I let it get into my backing on my Hardy... Fish rolled and came unbuttoned, I was literally shaking after that for a few minutes. That fish was so hot that on this most recent trip on the Klamath my springs busted on my reel, thankfully I brought a second one as a back up.

I'm convinced that Mattole fish ruined the springs on my Hardy... Just ordered some stronger ones from Archuleta up in Grants Pass!

Good stuff Bwag......

About 50 years ago I worked in an old bait-n-tackle shop in West Sacramento. One of the best fly fishers of the Greatest Generation, Jack McGlaughlin, who was a retired Sacramento City Fire Fighter, told me that if I wanted to catch some of the best Steelhead I should fish in the winter on the short coastal streams for wild Steelhead with a fly.

Jack showed me how to tie some of his favorite comet style winter Steelhead flies.

He took me out on the lower American River once and tried to get me straightened out some.

He told me when I hooked a wild fresh run hen Steelhead over 10 pounds I would know what he was talking about.


I was lucky to be able to hook some of those fish with my mentors Joe Shirshac and Al Perryman back in the 1970s.


I only hope that some of you here can hook a good wild hot Fall run Steelhead swinging a fly.

It would be nice to see some of hook some wild winter runs but that is a little tougher, more unpredictable fishing due to the winter weather.

PS: Nothing like using a Hardy click-n-pawl reel on Steelhead........classic.

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