BC rivers part 2

As winter rolled in we heard lots of concerned locals say that catching steelhead on the swing would be tough. Many people with gear rods were catching them on pink worms and big bead eggs, and a few on spoons. We even set up one of our backup spey rods with a quasi center-pin rig (we never really fished it).

River two was beautiful but we wanted to experience a few different rivers, so we headed to river three

We found a couple guys in a wall tent to give us a shuttle for a couple Tim Horton's Bagel BELT's but they were very confused why we were getting on the water at dawn with such low temps. we were rookies...

Ice flow was still present four hours later at 11 am. There is not a chance a single species of fish in the world would be very aggressive with ice flowing over their heads. This day we saw a ton of steelhead while floating. We saw them in seams, tail-outs, around structure...everywhere. and we caught 1, the smallest steelhead I saw on the entire trip

Baby little BC Hen, barely cracked 26.5 inches

The next day it was even colder. One of the local guides asked us how we were doing. We said not a touch. He responded, "its the cold, eh"

On the end of our third day on river 3, I finally hooked into something serious. It was definitely the best 6-7 seconds of the entire trip. We waited until mid afternoon to get on the river to let the water warm up and avoid the ice flow. It was worth it. I also was trying a variation of the North Umpqua winter steelhead technique: I would cast down at an angle do a huge reach mend give out 6-8 feet of slack and let it sink straight before my fly started to swing. Right in the middle of the swing I got a double tug and 30 feet of line ripped out. The fish porpoised looking like a true 15-20 pounder, then ran right upstream and spit the hook. Ben and I celebrated the take like a landed fish. It was a true aggressive giant in cold ass water. This moment gave us hope.

So we took the next two days off. Its a new rule in BC that only Canadians can fish on weekends on the good rivers!!! 

Any guesses on why?? 

After finding out how that new law got passed I agreed and disagreed, basically it came down to Americans being rude and homesteading on holes for weeks at a time. No joke, weeks! Well we spent two days recovering from the cold and tying patterns for the last two days of steelheading.

Another issue we were having was having to float to far per day, meaning less time to fish and less runs we could fish. So we cut our usual float in half, but had to find an access point. We picked a feeder creek that seemed about half way and it couldn't be that far from the river.

Well it was pretty far and we had to portage all types of structure

How'd this truck get here?

The coolest part of the creek was there were spawning late run COHO everywhere. we watched them chase each other around in the tiny water. We finally made it to the river and actually got to swing 4 or 5 good spots. The first spot I thought I had a snag, and then the snag started swimming. So since we just saw COHO, I thought it must be a spawned out COHO, but as I yanked it to try to get it off it was a large buck, and it came off. Never do that. But we knew that the steelhead were biting. In the next run we fished I hooked a similarly sluggish fish, but I played it out and it was a fresh-ish hen.

So we fished another couple runs till dark and I hooked and landed one more fish. My Big Red Dog of the trip. No monster, but a real nice fish.

My buddy Ben was fishing well, and hard but he was getting unlucky, he deserved one more steelhead, so that night we planned to fish new water, and I made sure he got first swing on each run. It was a tough day. The water had dropped a ton, and fish were not eager. Finally on the last run of the day, on our last day, right before dark Ben hooked into a real hot fish. It took out 50 yards of line, tail-walking the whole way. I was pumped for him, but knew it marked the end of our trip and I was truly sad.

So we left Skeena country and headed south through some absolutely wild weather. rain in 15F weather! It would take a lifetime to truly learn one of these tributaries. We learned how to cast a little better and occasionally hook a steelhead. The trip was very unsatisfying, which is good. If it had gone perfectly and we both had caught twenty steelhead and a couple over twenty pounds, their would be no longing to go back, it would have just been a novelty, like fishing a trophy pond with pellet flies. Since I returned at the beginning of November, I web search BC steelhead, buy new spey gear, tie tube flies, and dream of steelhead. I've even had post steelheading depression. Every time I have gone trout fishing since, I have brought my switch rod, and swung to fish on tailwaters. Ben and I have tried to explain our trip and our struggles to friends and family, but no one gets it. I have shown my girlfriend so man steelheading videos, ensuring she'll never want to do it.

We called our boat the Super 8 (reference to the crappy canadian tire bike) after it got a hole in it on river 3. After we patched it, it held up beautifully, when we laid it to rest, it earned the title Super Duper 8 (not quite a super duper puma)

 5 am in Jasper, AB