Great thread! The side channel above Blue Creek 1992 and it was snowing hard. It was my first time steelheading. I had borrowed my friends Kunan and we were throwing carpet pad and corkies. I really had no clue how to fish. The guy across the channel from me was yelling that I was standing on the fish, I ignored him and next cast...fish on 8lb chromer. We went back a few times that winter and back then it was fish on almost every time. I was hooked deep. Next summer I financed an older Wooldridge that I couldn't afford and started boondoggin. My buds loved it as they caught fish right and left but it took me a full year to land a steelhead from the boat. I thought I was hexed. But I figured it out and now I look back and think how much that first day in the snow changed my life.