For all of you who are sitting on your butts and not fishing during high water times, you are missing out. Last thursday, Dec. 22nd caught this nice 8+ lb hatchery hen. This is one of the fattest hatchery fish I have ever seen. Hooked on a bobber and 4.5 inch baby pink seducer worm. Here she is.



Curtis

Niiiiice.

Quite a fatty. That's gettin' 'er done in hard conditions.

hey bud the high water's an awesome time to fish, we've hooked 25 between two guys the last two days, nice fish btw

Very nice hen... There's too much football and X-mas leftovers to consume right now to seriously think about fishing. Im waiting for the fully finned variety of steelhead to show up before i put down the remote..
yeah right, bring the rain and mud...its steelhead season

were you fishing in mud colored water with 2inch vis and nearly flood stage? I was.

sorry i was only fishin 8 inches of vis...

:rolleyes: , and my pole is bigger than yours, paalleaase!

Hey curtis, if ya wanna play that game, I hooked 16 fish between saturday sunday and monday in a river with 2-3" vis and water levels that were around 1800-2000 cfs and is best fishable around 800.. =) Muddy water can be a great time to fish!

TBird, Blind, fungus-headed Chum don't count...

sorry did not meen to sound like a jerk, it sounded wrong. Nice job reyns. T-bird, moldy chums really don't count!

Ha.. By the way that is a nice fish Curtis.. To be honest, I didn't see a single chum this past weekend... Hooked a small handful of half bright-half dark silvers, but that 16 is only counting steelhead What I'm basically saying is that I dont mind having the rivers blown out this time of year when the brats are in thick.. First real high water, rivers get choked full of em, and if you can read water, and play your cards just right, you can find fish! Usually dont find that kind of success late in the season, but Then again, there are a handful of days you will find the nates like that as well! Blown rivers to me, usually just mean there wont be any traffic or people to share fish with! =)

t-bird,

nice job, I have also been hooking alot of half bright native silvers over the last week aswell. They keep the action going in between steelhead. This year I have had a terrible time landing steelies. since dec 17 I am 2 for 8 on steelhead. Last year I landed 85% of the steelhead I hooked, this year only 25% so far. I need to start laying down some more solid hooksets I guess, too much not setting the hook on chum that hit plugs back in november, made my hooksetting ability rusty.

Curtis

I'm having a really bad hook to land ratio.. As I mentioned in my "can't be pleased with modern line" thread.. I have broken a lot of fish off with 15.. Needless to say, with the higher water and such, since I switched to 25 lb on sunday morning (Hardly sporting but... =) I have hooked 10 fish and landed 6 of them, so my odds have gone up.. I can't even begin to tell you guys about my monster chrome I got today... oh buddy! Measured out to 16.5" WOW! The smallest mature steelhead I've landed to date.. All on 25# with double 1/0 gammies.. Swallowed it and was bleeding when I brought it up, so I felt the duty to bonk it (Tasted damn good tho!) Again, anyone that says oh you're fishing too big, Tell em to bug off =) He just inhaled both hooks, eggs, corky and all even with a prompt hookset!

I've been getting decent hooksets, but god, I've lost so many fish this year its pathetic... Reyns will account for that!

What's up with that? My landing ratio has sucked this month too, which is pretty uncharacteristic given I'm mostly float fishing and my hookups have been historically lethal. Maybe there's a transcontinental piscatorial conspiracy going on. Who's tipped them off?

fb

Nice fish! Got the next 5 days off and I'm there. Would be nice to have a brat like that one for the BBQ. I don't care if I loose half of em, just need to hear the spool screem. Lined up with #20 ultragreen. This time last year I was using 20/20 and did great. They didn't seem to mind the heavy leaders. Some one should start a thread for hooked:landed ratio. My worst was 1:11 in 2004 and best was 2:2 2005, both summer run at BC.

After today I am at 3 for 10 on steelhead this winter, still not good. I think I need to go back to my longer float rods and stop using my 1141 and 1024 Loomis' for float fishing. The rods just bend instead of setting the hook, they only work good for side drifting. 25lb line wow! I run 10lb hi-vis Izor mainline and 6 or 8lb maxima ug leader and I have only broke one steelhead off this year, that was because I was trying to land it on a 45 degree bank, leader broke right at the hook.

I'll tell ya one thing, the heavy line makes it nice for getting a drift in slower water, and takes nothing short of a downrigger cannonball to get a drift in the fast deep stuff! lol..But consequently, I've yet to break one off, and I've yarded a couple up through whitewater, with my thumb on the spool and rod straight keeping them out of logs and stuff, Just to see if I can do it! Watch out fish, I'm comin and I'm bringin hell with me!! =) I'm surprised I haven't been flamed yet for not giving these poor misfit brats a chance in hell.. Fact is, there are over 20 more fish out there that shouldn't be alive as of this season cause of my misfortune! =)