Winter steel in WA

E
eugene1
Thought I would post this here as well as on PP,

Well, A buddy and I made the trip from Duck-land up to Gray's Harbor this weekend. I had won the Solfly Auction donated from Jim "Hairball" Harrington at Action Guide Service. We made the 4 hour drive up without incident.

We rolled into Montesano Saturday night and hit the Gepetto's bar & restaurant for some sustanance. Meet some locals with big hair who were dressed up in 80's garb? Had some beer and pizza. Unfortunately, no local Dick's beer on tap that night...

Picked up our licenses at the coolest gas station we'd ever seen because they had more corkies than bimart...
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photo1a.jpg

Talked with Jim as to where to meet in the morning and retired to the motel.

The morning greeted us with about 3-4 inches of fresh sticky snow. Meet Jim shoveling his drifter out with an oar in the morning.
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Jim decided that the Wynoochee would be the best drift for us and we made our way to the river on snowy roads. Very pretty river blanketed in snow.
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We got rigged up with side drifting gear and I was able to get into a bright hatchery buck at the "car body hole". You guys should take better care of your rivers up there and not dump cars into them...

The weather was challenging to fish in. It was snowing all morning and we probably had another two inches fall on us early.
photo1.jpg

We came to a section of river that was partially blocked by an overturned drifter. The boat capsized and was tied off to shore, but no one was around. Hope the dudes got out of the water OK...
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Next up my homie hooks a ginormous chrome hen. I estimated it at a solid 20# plus fish (on the Orygun scale). We were going down a swift section and the fish was taking out line and rolling all over the place. We ended up losing her after a couple of minutes! Jim later mentioned it was probably in the 13-15# range...

My buddy gets into another hen and gets it to the boat, Jim nets her and we bonk it. Two down, two to go.
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We switched up to trolling gear and my rod buries with a nice fish on, but I promptly performed a long line release after a few seconds and a little jump. We continued on and had some more takes, but nothing else stuck for us.

When we left for the day, the conditions were deteriorating. We passed maybe 20 spun out cars on the drive back, although we made it just fine.

All in all, what a great trip!

My friend and I got to fish a new system in the company of a great guy. I really appreciated Jim donating his time in the auction and he taught us a lot. I never had much luck side drifting before, but I was doing it wrong. Jim was really awesome sharing his techniques and ideas about steelhead fishing with us.
photo3a.jpg

I also want to thank Parker for handling the auction and putting me in touch with Hairball.

Well, we got a couple of fish and had a cool trip up there.

Thanks,
 
L
lilsalmon
sweet....that looked cold but fun...except for the partly submerged drift boat....scary....Nice that you got into fish and yes, the 4th pic is beeeuuutiful. Good job guys.
 
S
Santiam338
Good job and nice fish..One of these days I may go on a guided trip to see what I have been doing wrong...Think about it every year...LOL

Hope they get that boat out soon...Rivers are going to blow ....Can't imagine how they did that unless they got up against that log sideways...River looks calm enough at least in that spot..l
 
E
eugene1
Thanks, S338.

That big buck in your recent post tells me you don't need a guide since you're doing it right! That animal was huge.

Not sure what happened to the downed boat, Jim thought they may have been coming down in the dark and gotten into that big tree or maybe the rocks on the other side that weren't in the photos. Made me take running rivers a little more seriously at anyrate since trouble can happen anywhere.
 
T
todd_brooks
Great report/post, I love fishing in the snow. I can for the life of me imagine leaving my boat there and not coming back with a come-along, after dry cloths of course. I wouldn't be able to sleep.
 
H
halibuthitman
love that river... as for the sank drifter... rule 1.. always put the plug in.. rule 2, please not everybody on the same rail at the same time!
 
C_Run
C_Run
Great story with pictures. I hope your fingers are defrosted by now.
 
B
bigsteel
:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:
 
M
muskieguide
Yeah that Monte Square gas station is awesome!!! I grew up in that place. Nice fish on the nooch
 
J
jawjacker
"cool" post love all the pics looks like a good time.
 
E
eugene1
Thanks everyone,

The trip was good times, but kinda cold. Getting into the fish helped with that, plus the guide had a heater in his boat for us.

That river was a lot easier to fish that the Willamette or Umpqua. No real rapids and the good fishy water was literally the entire 8 mile drift. One interesting feature was that there was a diversion dam we had to cross half way through the day. Kinda weird to see a dam across the whole river that we had to push the boat over.
 
E
eugene1
Saw on the other-other forum that the downed drift boat clipped a partially submerged log and then filled up with water. The two guys got out fine and another db took them down river. They came back the next day and got it pulled out.
 

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