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| The Klickitat River valley |
Yesterday and today (Oct 8-9) Dad & I fished the Klickitat River with guides from Red's Flyshop seeking steelhead and it was an incredible trip. These are the first steelhead Dad has caught since the Bella Coola days and we haven't been there since the early 1990's.
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| Dad's first steelhead since Bella Coola--bonked this hatchery fish! |
Yesterday we fished with Shan and he was great! Worked hard to put us into fish--and put he did! We landed 7 steelhead along with two incidental kings. A great day followed by fabulous food in the lodge right in the town of Klickitat and alongside the river. When we arrived yesterday there was a guy in a rowboat right in front of the lodge who caught a king salmon. Most of the folks on the river are fishing for salmon to keep so we were somewhat the oddities seeking steelhead to release.
We slept well in the comfortable rooms and had a great breakfast there at the lodge. We got an early start with Joe from Red's today. We were on the water today by 8:00 and had another great day of fishing with fish all day long.
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| Early morning mist on the Klicktat |
We had landed our first fish less than 100 yards into the float again today and had the last fish shortly before the takeout. I hooked and landed it about where the mist is rising in the photo above--pretty sweet!
While fishing for steelhead today we agai
n hit some kings and they were hard fighters. Today while fighting one of the kings my nice Ross reel exploded. I mean for real--pieces went flying everywhere! I'm left trying to fight a fish holding the reel without any drag mechanism or hub to keep it on the spindle. While fighting the fish (and killing my knuckles!) Joe is trying to put the drag and hub pieces back on the reel so I can continue the fight. Alas, the fish broke off and my reel is dead. I'll be sending it to Ross for repairs. Better here where I can fix it easily than in Mexico next March on a bonefish!
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| A king I landed before a bigger one destroyed my Ross reel! |
Dad and I had a double with whitefish early today and had two chances at doubles on big fish, but somehow one of us always lost the second one before firmly hooking it. Great action, great company, great scenery, great guiding--need I say more? Brothers, we've got to get this onto the schedule for 2014 most definitely!
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| Dad with a Klickitat king to quickly fight and release |
I"ll finish with a few more photos from our trip so you get an idea of the topography. Canyon is very narrow with very little bottom, much of it is isolated with no road access--the stretch we floated pictured in first photo is such a section. Oak and pine forest mostly mixed and saw numerous deer and some turkeys. Joe saw a bear consumed salmon yesterday so all kinds of furry and feathered (and finned) freinds.
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| Mixed pine and oak forest |
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| Upstream view |
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| Downstream view |
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| The lodge at river's edge where we stayed |
2 comments:
Looks like an awesome trip. Caught on ? Nothing to bonk?
Amazing! That has to go on the to do list!
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