Postcard from British Columbia
April 25, 2008
Greetings from B.C., where we’re currently on the 2008 Steelhead Safari! Joining me this year are The Vinman and “Go Home” Kinne.
Despite the lowest water conditions I’ve ever encountered here in April, we had a nice first day of steelheading. Here are some of the highlights…
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Late Steel
April 7, 2008
Yea, it’s April and most Northern California steelhead streams are closed…but there are a few places still open where you can get a last-minute cure for your jones…
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One “Moore” Big Steelie!
March 31, 2008
Seems like the big steeies have been on a pretty good chew up and down the coast lately!
Here’s one more for the road: Northern California guide, Mike Moore holds up a beautiful Eel River buck that one of his clients caught and released recently. They were drifting eggs when the bruiser came calling.
Nice Fish!
The Steelhead that ate Cleveland!
March 21, 2008
Okay, so maybe this fish didn’t actually eat Cleveland, but it’s damn near big enough to do so. Jimmy Davis caught it, as he says, “Somewhere along the West Coast,” on a pink and chartreuse Action Tail Steelhead Worm dangled under a float. After the quick grip-n-grin, the big beast was left to go about his business.
The behemoth wasn’t the only toad from the trip….
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Another 20-lb. steelhead!
March 12, 2008
Here’s yet another 20-pound steelhead taken this week… by yet another couple guys I used to guide with in Alaska (if you’ll recall, we had a picture of a 20 pounder taken on the Olympic Peninsula a few days back that was hooked by a guy from that same lodge).
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20-pound steelhead!
March 4, 2008
Jake “The Giant” Martinson is a cool kid I used to work with in Alaska who’s turned into quite the steelhead angler. Here’s a photo of a 20-pounder he caught and released last weekend near Forks, WA on the Olympic Peninsula.
I’ll step aside here and let the kid tell how it all went down…
Icy Rainbow!
February 18, 2008
I’ve long been a subscriber to a couple basic principles regarding winter fishing that go something like this:
1) If you have to chop a hole in a river to fish, it’s too cold to fish… And 2) If you can drive your truck out onto a lake, well, again, perhaps there are better options to be considered.
Catching a couple ‘bows like this one, however, could make a guy like me change his tune. I mean, that thing is bigger than some the fish we call “steelhead” here in the Central Valley. Kenton Nichols of Eagle River, Alaska, sent in the pic and says that while he’d rather be fishing open water, ice fishing seems to make the long northern winters pass more quickly. Plus, he catches a bunch of really nice fish through the ice each season.
Hmmm, I suppose I could get into it, especially if you threw in a couple of warm adult beverages and a pimped out ice shack…
20-pound steelie on a dry, eh!
February 9, 2008
Catching a 20 pound steelhead on anything is an amazing feat…getting one on a floating wad of feathers and glue…now, that’s tha shanizzle!
This fish was caught in British Columbia’s Skeena River last fall with West Coast Fishing Adventures out of Terrace, B.C.
Too bad it was such a dark, spent fish!
The Beast that ate Winnipeg, eh!
January 19, 2008
Check out this freaking huge 56-inch Northern Pike from the Winnipeg River!!
Now, the really amazing part of the story is this the fact that angler Seven Sisters was cranking in a 36-inch pike when Jaws here ate it! Sweet Mother of all Hitchhikers!
The strange lovechild of a rainbow trout & a football
January 16, 2008
To celebrate the fact that it’s football season, our man on the scene in the Nimbus Basin of the American River, RH, sent in this photo of himself with this trippy-looking rainbow-steelie-football-broostocker-thingie.
The obese creature was taken about 1/2-mile above the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, which raises both steelies and stocker rainbows and, judging by the eroded dorsal, it’s spent its share of time in a concrete raceway. Methinks it’s not a hatchery steelhead because of the fully-intact adipose fin. I’m with RH, this thing is probably an escaped broodstocker rainbow.
Thanks, RH, and keep those fish pix coming!
