I have now officially entered my 2nd year of Steelhead obsession. To be more precise-Surface Steelhead Obsession. To be even yet more precise, Single-hand Surface Steelhead Obsession. Apparently I couldn't have picked a more fickle, yet more rewarding river to feed my obsession on than the mighty Clearwater in Idaho. Had I known going into this I may have chosen a different river, perhaps the Ronde, promised by many to be as easy as a drunken somphmore prom date... or perhaps the Methow, with fish as willing as any in the lower 48 to grab a skater.... Alas the Clearwater and all her glory caught my fancy. The proximity of the Clearwater to Western Montana where I call home, the possibility of her giving up a magnificent 20 lb. b-run steelhead, whatever the reason matters little. I am in too deep now.
Many factors pointed to last weekend not being the best time for a steelhead trip; less than stellar steelhead counts, the fact that not many had gone over Lower Granite dam yet, flows still in the 10,000 cfs range (not exactly ideal), forecast for hot and sunny weather. Ultimately none of it mattered when the calendar rolled over to September and the ever-intensifying burning in my gut took over, a trip to the Clearwater was the only way to satiate my almost-out-of-control habit.
It took hardly any convincing and I had suckered my son Marshall into making a weekend trip. The stage was set.....
Upon topping Lolo Pass on highway 12, we were promptly greeted by a thick haze of forest fire smoke. Descending into the thick of smoke was almost a trial in itself. Almost ritualistic, descend the depths of fire and smoke to reach the steelhead oasis that was the Clearwater.
A quick stop by the world-famous Red Shed Fly Shop in Peck is always in order. Poking our head in the door, Poppy, the junkyard spey guru himself, was nowhere to be found. A good omen perhaps that there were enough steelhead in the system to tempt Poppy into an afternoon swinging jaunt. The report was just as expected-not many fish in the system, probably only worthwhile staying below the hwy 95 split and really the lower the better, hot and sunny weather making it pretty much a very early morning and very late evening type of affair. Nothing we weren't expecting anyway.
We made it to the "Hippie Camp" hole, as we've come to know it by (actually a whole story in and of itself, replete with a broken down van and an armpit hair rockin' hippie chick that informed us, among many other amusing factoids, that she was packin and knew how to shoot) by about 4 0'clock. Just as we were wadering up, a guy pulls up all ready to go and promptly headed for our run. Well fuck. What do ya do? We give the guy a half-hearted wave and bid him good luck anyway, you never know when the steelhead karma gods are keeping points....
With palpable anticipation we wet set out for our re-baptism. Upon arrival at the run we noticed the guy had chosen to start about halfway down, leaving us the top of the run. Either he's a hell of a guy or he figured we would low-hole him and beat us to the punch. I like to think it was the former, besides the run is plenty big for the three of us, things were starting out ok after all. We were wading the hallowed waters chasing steelhead after all weren't we? Shit was starting to feel right in the universe at that moment....
Having been a few months since I tossed my 8 wt., the first few casts were clumsy and unnatural feeling. Before long I was into the rhythm... cast, mend, skate, wait, step, step, repeat. Marshall fell right into the groove as well...this was going to be a good trip, I could tell.
To fish for steelhead, one must have the right mindset, or at least it helps a helluva lot. Steelhead fishing is tedious. They're not called the fish of a thousand casts for nothing. To flick flies for steelhead is even more a cast of eternal hope and almost complete disappointment. To flick floating flies with a single-hand rod in the Clearwater seems it's own special kind of crazy. Regardless, as I continue my cadence, the constant thought running through my mind finally seeps completely into the conscious part of my brain. I actually expect a take on every cast. So much so that i find myself narrating the take. First I imagine a take the second my fly hits the water. Soon it changes to different points during the skate, natural progression lead me to imagine a take on "the dangle", and finally I imagine taunting a steelhead into a take by "popping" my fly just before I strip to make my next cast. The funny thing is, even though I honestly anticipate a take on EVERY cast, my imagination even knows better than to land anywhere near 100% of these fish that take my fly. In fact I realize that I've only imagined landing maybe 3 or 4 of these out of probably 150 casts that I made that evening. Even funnier is that fact that Marshall informed me on the walk back to the parking lot, well after dark, that he imagined a take on every cast...interesting. I confessed how my imagination had taken the same liberty with me. Alas our imagined takes never materialized and we were left to spend the night dreaming of our first steelhead take on a dry.
Dawn broke earlier than expected the next morning and we got a later start than we wanted. Admittedly the enthusiasm factor was low from the start and with not a cloud in the sky, the opportune time to skate up a steelhead passed quickly without so much as a boil. Shitfuck, with morning one in the books we decided to retire for a short nap before grabbing lunch. Over lunch we decided to try "Hippie Camp" hole again. One thing we've been told again and again, whether it's skate, swing or nymph,, fly selection or run selection, one of the most important factors is do what you have the most confidence in. Even though we have yet to skate up a steelhead this particular stretch of water is the one we gravitate to early in the season when the fish are down low. Any little bit of confidence can be a game changer. So we arrive quite a bit earlier than the day before and find we are indeed first in. Oddly we feel like starting part-way down the run, whether it's again a karma related decision or simply where we subconsciously think we'll have the best chance or a combination of both we just kind of silently decide to start near the power line. Again we slip into a comfortable rhythm and again I imagine a take on every cast. Again we are left to wonder what that first surface take will be like...
Oddly enough, after about an hour of cast, mend, skate, dangle, step, step, repeat we are broken from out trance by voices. Sure enough, near the top of the run, 3 have fallen into the same cadence, only they are actually talking with one another, perhaps they're alot more seasoned than we are. Who knows, but for whatever reason and without really discussing it, Marshall and I tend to remain silent while we work a run waiting for that boil. Maybe subconsciously we feel that talking will affect our focus and that we need every bit of Jedi mind power we can muster as we try to WILL a steelhead to grab out skater. Anyway, another session of skating dries had yet to yield any results and we are left to deal with an ever-growing obsession. I did manage to snap a nice photo during a quick break at sunset, sometimes it's the little things that add to the experience and ultimately help ensure that a return is imminent.
After dinner and another discussion of the imagining a take on every cast, the endless scenarios that played out from a mere boil, to losing one at hand to finally hoisting a giant b-run triumphantly for a quick photo op before releasing it back to the depths, we decide to arise considerably earlier the next morning to ensure maximum opportunity to skate up our first steel....talk about a fitful night.
With only the early portion of the next morning to fish (real world dictates that we get back home before too late Sunday) sure enough we are teased with a cool, partly cloudy morning. As ideal of conditions as you can hope for this early in the season. I can't think of many better ways to greet a sunrise....
We stayed longer than we originally planned because the conditions were so good compared to the previous two days...still to no avail. Our fist steelhead on the surface will not come on this trip and that only serves to intensify my desire...
By the way, the three guys from the night before turned out to be from Bozeman in our home state of Montana. We had a nice chat with them and learned that one had indeed caught a steelhead the day before, on the surface skating dries. Turns out he was not actually one of the group originally. The other two guys happened to make the almost mandatory stop at Poppy's and turns out the third guy's car had broken down just a little earlier when he stopped by to say hi to Poppy. How cool is that? The guy left his broken-down car to hop in with a couple of kindred spirits, choosing to deal with real-life shit later on... Fuckin A, I like his style. And then how sweet is it for the two guys to offer this other guy a spot in their ride, to share their camp and to fish together for the weekend... I imagine that was a rather large deposit into their steelhead karma bank account, right on guys......
