Chillin’. The ice is a 1/2-foot thick; my gas-powered ice auger ought to do the trick…
Steelhead in the Saltwater: The Purple Unicorn
What the heck happens to steelhead in the ocean? Where do they go? While ocean anglers catch tens of thousands of salmon every season off the West Coast, steelhead are encountered about as often as purple unicorns.
Well, here’s maybe a hint: A couple buddies of mine were trolling big plugs at 8 mph for albacore 20 miles off the Northern California coast when something strange happened…they caught a steelhead.
When the 8-pound hatchery hen hit, it started going bananas, jumping all over the place behind the boat. The thought that it was steelhead never entered their minds. At first the guys figured they had a dorado on. Then they thought it might be a yellowtail. As it got closer, the steelie looked like a coho.
But when they got her boatside, the fish was obviously a steelhead — and a gorgeous one at that.
After a few quick photos, they let her go, knowing that they had just seen something that few anglers ever witness — a steelhead in saltwater.
A small sample size, to be sure, but perhaps this sheds a bit of light on the ocean migration patterns of sea-run rainbows. Could it be that they like a bit warmer water than do their salmon cousins — and thus live much furthers offshore? If steelies spent most of their salt time well off the coast, that would explain why so few are caught by salmon trollers.
I donna…just taking a guess here!
7X tippet and a No. 22 Zebra Midge?
Here I am with a big Alaskan ‘bow caught by a client of mine on the Nushagak River while we were backtrolling a “California Watermelon” K-15 Kwikfish on 60-lb. mono leader. So much for cobweb tippets and matching the hatch…
Aliens on light tackle!
So there we are, Big Fred and me, guiding a saltwater fishing expedition in Northern California when Big Boy gets the bright idea to hook up a chunk of bait on a light spinning outfit…”just for kicks.”
It doesn’t take long for the bait to get eaten…by an alien.
And let me tell you, when hooked on light gear, the extraterrestrial beast put up quite a scrap! Ron Milam, of Rocklin, CA was the man on the stick for the battle, which raged on for a good 36 straight hours. Well, okay, maybe it was more like 20 minutes, but it took a good week for Ron’s fingers to uncramp and straighten out after the encounter.
The world’s largest rainbow?
Move over Bell Island, Alaska, there’s a new home (if all the paper work goes through) of the all-tackle world record rainbow trout: Lake Diefenbaker.
Lake Diefen…what? I know, it’s not exactly a household name — until now — but the lake in Saskatchewan has a reputation for pumping out incredible rainbows like this pending world record caught by Adam Konrad, 26, of Saskatoon.
According to the fine folks at trophytroutguide.com, the mammoth beast weighed 43.6 pounds and was 38.75 inches long with an incredible girth of 34 inches.