Hi Jim,
It was a lot of fun. There were quite a few 6-8 lb. natives in the
river and I managed to hook one about a mile below the Rattlesnake Rapid
on the west bank. It's a wonderful stretch of the river because you can
wade easily quite far into the river on the basalt. It's about an
hour or more walk from the car so that weeds those without heart. I
almost skipped the spot to continue working down to the woman I was fishing
with that evening. But it looked fishy - an apparently deep slot a
short distance downstream from a rock. I had barely been in the water; on the first cast fish on... Sure enough the Freight Train... I did not take
a picture, because I sort of man handled the fish and wanted to release
safely. I did take pictures of the river and a couple of other items I
found on the trip (see attached). The only drawback to the lower
river is the pretty high number of fishers - many gear fisherman - as well
as fly fishers most of whom had spey rods.
Two public comments:
1. If you see someone fishing ask if you can "step in" either above or below
them depending on whether they are steelhead or trout fishing with a
fly. For steelhead fishing you step in above the person already fishing;
for trout the opposite applies. All bets are off with gear fishers,
although the ones we encountered were amiable enough.
2. I'm never skunked "catching" all the debris people lose or leave
behind in rivers. This year alone I've found a nice cutting tool (I'll send a picture over the weekend) and those pliers (the "keepers") not to mention all the line, leader and monofilament.Imagine if every fisher just picked up one item they could easily carry...
Tight Lines,
Susan S.
