Steelhead

So..........

Last week Jake and I went up to Salmon steelheading. Jake with gear and I on the fly. We perused the river a little in the morning trying to decide where to go. Jake decided he like the hole right under the bridge in town. So he "utahed" his way in and promptly got into double digits in fish (and he actually landed some too). We must have seen over 60 fish come out of that hole in an hour.



Being on a fly rod I went up above the hole away from the elbow to elbow crowds, but I didn't get any bites. The weather was incredible. Must have been near 60 all day. Forecast had called for rain. We didn't see hardly any clouds let alone any raindrops.



After about an hour we jumped into the boat and floated down to Carmen. I tied into one nice steelie at the Lemhi hole. Fought him for a while and then he spit me. We made it down to Carmen then went up rivers a ways and fished till dusk. Tally for the day: 2 suckers, 2 whitefish and one almost steelhead.



I will be heading up around Ellis in the next little while. Need to tie some flies this weekend.

Preparation Chrome

So today in preparation of a steelhead trip at some point in the near future I:

Examined my old Chota STL wading puts and thought about putting the stud kit in them. 5 years of hard use and they are pretty much beyond redemption. Soles are destroyed, leather is worn through in a couple of spots. They were great boots but they are now gone.

Took the Reddingtoon Boots I purchased cheap last spring and put the studs into them. These have not been real good boots. I have glued the soles back on a couple of times. The nylon spots are wearing through without a whole lot of use. And they have always been a little loose. So I glued and the screwed the soles on, used the Chota screw studs. Soles won't be coming back off ;) and threw an extra foot liner into them from an old pair of sneaker both to tighten them up and so that the screw tips never meet my waders.

I am either going to get another set of STLs (those Chotas have been great boots for me) or a pair of Korkers to match my summer hikers.

Patched a leak in my waders. Hope I got that bugger. Though last time I went a couple of weeks back the water was actually much warmer than it was for my last fall trip.

Replaced the trailer wiring kit on my rig. It hadn't been working for a while and I purchased the replacement kit last fall.

Replaced the tail lights on my boat trailer with submersible LED lights. No more blown bulbs when hot light meets cold river. Though it does appear that I have a side marker out still. I'll have to chase that down later. Those LEDs look awesome... much brighter than my old filament bulbs.

Now it is time to tie up some replacement soft milking eggs. Lost 1/2 dozen last outing. Reports have 24 fish up to the Pahsemeroi hatchery so there are fish now most of the way up to Challis. I will most likely fish right around North fork or Carmen.

Allen & Co gear

As the prices were too good to pass up I picked up an Allen & Co XL reel, a spare spool, and two lines. With shipping the whole shooting match was just over $100.00 (now where else can you get a LA reel, a spare spool and 2 lines for under $100.00 bones?). I have used the reel and line once and am pleased with the results. The machine work and tolerances look very good. The carbon fiber drag has nice adjustability and good stopping power. In all, I am very happy with the purchase.



From my interactions with the owner of the company, Justin, I would say that he is a very stand up guy. By my interaction and various other reports on the web it shows he goes out of his way to ensure that his customers are satisfied with their purchases.

So for anyone looking for some good gear at incredible prices check out Allen & Co.

Steelheading

Got the fly box ready and went up to Salmon. Went too far down the river to deep water. Deeper than I could really cover on the swing.

As all I tied into was one 4 inch bow, one 13" cutthroat and one sucker fish I am just going to show the fly box ;)



Eggs of which I lost about 1/2 of the ones seen here. Luckily they take about a minute an egg. These are otter soft eggs in the 6mm size. I pushed a small red glass bead into the egg before pushing the egg over the eye.



Various flies tied over the last few months. Each takes me over an hour.