JkbWorld

Super Bowl Sunday Native Winter Steelhead

James and I hit the river early this morning to see if we could score a Gameday Winter Steelhead before the Super Bowl.  As you can see by the picture, we managed to get into the end zone for a score!  We got this picture seconds after getting the fish near the bank, and seconds before popping out the jig.  You can even see the water still dripping off this native winter steelhead buck!

James Fishing the Seam

I had my rod rigged up with my starters (some salmon eggs for a while, followed by another jig), but the ticket today was when I went to the bench and put our old pal, the pink worm, into the game!  My float danced down a nice little seam between some fast and slow water, and suddenly, the bruiser took my float down like a blitzing linebacker!!  It was strong as an offensive lineman, too, as for the first two minutes the fish was on, my reel was screaming like a packed stadium as he was taking line and heading downstream!  Imagine Chris Berman’s “He… Could… Go… All… The.. Way…”

Then, once he got out there, he did some high flying theatrics, getting completely out of the water twice!!  But after a short battle, I was able to get his head turned and pulled in for the score!  Touchdown!

James with the Float and Jig

Despite his bad cold, James was able to get his game face on and endure a few hours of fishing!  A steelhead for him would have cured him of his cold for sure.  Don’t worry, James, we’ll get you into a fish soon!!

Pink Worm Strikes Again: Native Winter Steelhead

Here’s another picture where you can really see this Winter Steelhead’s tail.  You can imagine that tail launching this guy out of the water like a big green football! Also, for all my non-fishing readers, you see that fin on the steelhead’s back right before my thumb?  That is the adipose fin and they get clipped off on hatchery fish, which is how I know it’s a native.

Anyway, this native steelhead was released unharmed a few seconds later to finish the trip upstream, where hopefully he’ll settle down with a nice steelhead hen and spawn another generation of biters like him!  Meanwhile, the Pink Worm was named the MVP of today, and is certainly having a good start to a Pro Bowl Season!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Fishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.