Gear on and in the truck by 6 am. In the water by 7am and on the heels of Steel. To catch a steelhead you have to find them and with Steelhead there can be allot of searching. Ever changing water levels can make yesterdays glory hole just another sad story. After checking several spots on the river and casting into countless empty runs, I heard someone say, “I got two.” That’s the guy I want to talk to. The long and the short is he had two beautiful chromers. He was nice enough to explain where he got them and show me the runs hidden amongst the slippery flat rocks. After nearly falling numerous times I finally got out to a casting position and dropped my pink egg pattern with two small split shot into the abyss of hope.

I’d put a steelhead nymph rig together made up of 9ft of leader material and 3ft of tippet. This, along with the afore mentioned split shot gave me that tic,tic, ticking I was looking for. My fly was drifting along naturally near the bottom at the same speed as the current.

My setup was working right. I watched as my indicator bobed up and down then started up stream. I set the hook and brought in this nice little Rainbow Trout. I took this picture of the fish next to my Abel steelhead reel. I could not help but notice how similar the fish and the reel actualy looked. Tomorrow, I hope his larger steelhead cousin will make that reel sing.