I'm still around: in fact, I made a couple of comments yesterday on somebody else's thread about fishing spoons for steelhead. Although I'm newly registered on the site, I've been reading this forum for years because it's an excellent source of information, especially on gear and techniques. Despite the impression you may have gotten from my posts in this particular thread, I'm actually a reserved, private person. So I'm not about to announce my name publicly. And on the subject of dredging, I don't have anything more to say.

Since you asked if I really fished, I do fish and I do it regularly throughout the year. My dad took me fishing as a boy and the bug never left me. I've been fishing "seriously" since about 1982, but I get skunked more times than I actually catch anything worth mentioning. That's okay. I enjoy fishing for sea-run cutts, humpies, silvers, chums, and steelhead. I've been fishing spinners for steelhead in recent years, but just got into spoon fishing for them in January...wish I'd done so before now. I've been encouraged by my spoon experiences so far this year, and actually landed two steelies (including a big buck) and lost another while bank fishing on the Sol Duc on February 22. My main fishing companion now is a very large dog (weighing more than I do), but she loses her mind when she realizes a fish is on my line, and that can be a BIG problem. I've already lost one tip on a Loomis rod when she tried to establish inter-species communications with a salmon I had just landed!