Trinity Saturday Morning

[Andris]

After getting skunked Monday afternoon, I drove back up Friday morning. Tried 3 or 4 new places and didn't get a nibble. With about an hour of daylight left, I went back to the hole I got a hook up at earlier that week. Second drift through I hooked and landed a nice 24" hatchery fish. Too dark to rig up, so I called it a day. Got back there before first light and after about 10 minutes hooked another 24"er. 5 minutes into the fight, I noticed the first 2 feet of my rod had broken off and had slid down to my indicator. Landed that one, walked to the car, got my spare rod (an 8'6" 5 wt) and hooked a real nice 28"er that took 40 mins to land. By that time I had to get on the road to Redding. I've never had a morning like that in my life. Will post some pictures when I get them.

[ripdlip]

Awsome...once in a while we just have one of those days. That's what keeps us going
Great job.
Any pics?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

When my fly shop was new and smaller I was the only one there a lot so I talked to lots of people about fishing every day.

One thing I told almost everyone who had the time to talk was that we all just need to put more days on the river and we would get better and catch more fish.

Sadly many of us can't get out much which does effect our growth in the sport and success.

I tell people that about every 6 trips out fly fishing you should hit a good day somehow.

I hope many of you can get out more.

Having a day like Andris had can be really wonderful.

If you don't have a lot of days to fish I recommend going with a good fly fishing guide once and a while too.

[Blane]

40 mins to land a 28" steelhead is borderline irresponsible.

[jbird]

I dont know if irresponsible is the right term. Probably 90% of steelheaders out there dont have the knowledge necessary for every situation theyre going to face while steelheading. Iresponsible is a word used when you know better. Fighting a fish for a very long time is very detrimental to the fish's health, but not a lot of people know this. Most anglers that fit this catagory are going to carefully fight a trophy fish to increase their chances of landing it. Rather than calling people irresponsible, perhaps we can educate them. The internet is a great venue to educate folks on subjects like this.

Jbird

[Darian]

Good point/post Jbird....

[Andris]

Hey Guys--I wondered when I made my first post whether someone would comment on the length of the fight because it sure seemed like a long time to me. Admittedly, I don't have years of experience with fish that size. But on more than one occaasion during the fight I remember becoming concerned that this was taking too long. Because my main rod had broken earlier that day, I was using a 8'6" 5 wt. Under the circumstances, I did what I could to get him in as fast as I could. Personally, I've always drawn the line of "responsibility" there. I would be interested to hear whether there are people who think it is not responsibile to fish for steelhead with such light tackle. I wouldn't think so because I'm sure many out there have caught larger on lighter. I can see the arguement, however, that from a preservaton of the species perspective, there is a line below which the fish is unreasonably exposed to harm. I don't honestly know where that line is with respect to migrating fish.

[Jasonh]

Andris, since you are just getting started in steelhead fishing i would not call fighting a steelhead for 40 minutes irresponsible but it is not the smartest thing to do. Our steelhead fisheries are extremely sensitive these days due to habitat, water conditions, and angling pressure. The runs are not nearly the size they used to be 50 years ago which makes fighting these fish an important topic. To maintain our runs of steelhead throughout the pacific northwest i believe it is extremely important to land these fish as quickly as possible. If this means using heavier leaders/tippet, bigger rods, or just flat breaking fish off due to putting more pressure on them , then thats what we need to do. As much as we would like to land every fish and get pictures of every fish, i believe that releasing them safely is the most important part for our fisheries in the future. The biggest kick for me is just feeling that grab and being able to play a fish for a few minutes no matter if i lose the fish or not. I think this is why people call it fishing and not catching.

Jason Hartwick

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I read a story where Bill Schadt who was one of the most famous CA North Coast fly fishers of all time fought a Smith River King Salmon for 8 hours?

__________________________________________________ __________

About 20 years ago Don Rotsma and Rick Jorgensen took me on their annual 2 week trip to Montana. After a great day on Silver Creek we stopped at the Railroad Ranch on the Henry's Fork. We went into Mike Lawson's fly shop and I bought a few flies for the day. I had a new Sage light line 4 weight rod, new Orvis CFO reel with a floating line so I put on a long leader to 6x and a #16 PMD thorax tie I just bought.

I found a big fish working the surface around one of these large submerged large rocks in the river. After a long time and a few tries I finally hooked a nice big hot Rainbow Trout. It took off like a Bonefish downstream and I had to chase after it because I was running out of backing. I finally landed it way down the river on the other side.

I was real happy and Don got a picture too (which is on his web site). It was a large, maybe 20" Rainbow and the largest I had landed on a small dry at the time.

Then a guy can along and read me the riot act about playing the fish too long. Well he was probably right but Don told him that it was my first really big trout on a light tippet and we just wanted a picture. I was a little nervous about then because I thought Big Don was going to hurt the guy but we all got along after that.

Turned out the guy was the river keeper and was just trying to protect his nice wild trout. He meant well and did educate me a Little to so it turned out to be OK.

I think we all need to land fish as fast as possible but I would say most new comer don't know how and need a little help with this. I guess the approach we use would be important so we don't make anyone feel bad?

Good subject..................

[donpline]

Andris,

Great job on the fish. I'm pretty sure most of us would have grabbed our 5 weight, if we broke our other rod. I'd rather read that after the battle you released the fish, as opposed to filleting it, and eating it for dinner.

On the Situk in Alaska a few years ago, there were more steelhead caught, than entered the river. Almost two thousand more fish were caught than the weir count, proving catch and release works, and that these fish are a little more resilient than most people give them credit for. I've had over 20 days on the Trinity this season and have yet to see a dead steelhead. I would not worry about too much about the extended fight. Put it in the book as a rookie mistake. And go kick butt on a few more.

I'm heading up this weekend, hopefully I'm lucky enough to catch the same fish a few more miles upriver.

What patterns did you hook your fish on?