Sure, rivers are out so why not.

Back in the late 70's the Cow went out in November and never came back in - most all winter it was 3 inches vis if that, and the flow never got out of 5 digits. Of course people stayed off the river and the river filled up with fish. Along about late January there seemed to be more steelhead than rocks. You could catch them, but you had to fish in the backwaters and behind structure, and you had to use the biggest glow corky you could find with a huge gob of eggs.

Anyway, back then you could walk into the bar across from Blue Creek, and I did one rainy Saturday. I had the river entirely to myself except for one jet sled anchored upstream. The river was up in the trees where it had been for nearly 3 months, but there were fish everywhere - I actually was tripping over steelhead trying to find some open water - really tends to startle you when a 10 pound chromer erupts from the lee of the rock you just put your foot behind Anyway, I finally got to a patch of soft water behnd a big rock, made a couple of casts, and right away hooked up to a hog - tail about a foot wide was all I saw as it hauled me down river, got me around a cottonwood tree, and snapped me off. Well, as I was trudging back up against the current the one sled on the river roared down and anchored right on top of the rock I hooked that fish behind. Again, this was the only open patch of water surrounded by a flooded forest. I stood there for awhile, eventually asked if he would move down as that was the only spot I could fish, and he ignored me, winding up and casting with his spinning rod out into the main river where a steelhead would need to be nuclear powered to stay in place. Well, it was raining, the water was choppy, and I guess he slipped and lost his balance during a cast, because the next thing I saw was this cracker grabbing the gunnel and this pretty yellow spinning rod sailing out into 20 feet of fast water about 50 feet away from the boat. He got up real quick and looked around, I guess to see if anybody saw what he did. Well, I couldn't help it, I started laughing my a$$ off. I also hoped that he would finally get off my rock but nope, he picked up another rod, put a couple of treble hooks and a big gob of lead on it, and proceeded to "fish" for his lost rod. This thing was probably most of the way to Castle Rock by then but he never left my rock, just kept at it.

I finally got tired of the show and left, went over to talk to one of my buddys that worked at the trout hatchery. There was a warden with an enforcement boat parked out front, so I told him about a snagger I saw down off Blue Creek. In the boat goes, I have a cup of coffee with my bud, and about a half-hour later back comes the warden - said the cracker had some BS story about trying to fish out a rod he lost but he wrote him a ticket for fishing with illegal gear anyway - said there was no way the guy could be trying to retrieve a rod out in 20 feet of water flowing 20 MPH :p