The Steelhead.

The last of a barrage of posts for a hot minute while a new trip is planned. The Pacific this winter, then Idaho or maybe the Great Lakes this fall. The harder we work the luckier we get.

Skunked or not; We all keep trying. D scores a first in angling legend. A Steelhead Woman. Go to botanyofbeing.life for more of her amazing work

These Guys! Success ! That right there is the ultimate prize.

Top photo: Idaho, the Clearwater River, fall colors, the steelhead swim hundreds of miles, almost a thousand actually, deep into Idaho to spend winter and spawn in spring. They would swim over the continental divide to spawn if it weren’t so steep the falls are impassable in the tributaries that tumble over the west slopes of the Rockies. Technically known as summer steelhead because they leave the pacific in July and August to arrive at their spawning waters where they where born ;to replicate and repeat their life cycle. Steelhead are different than salmon in that they usually return to spawn a few times in their life cycle. Some get lucky a fourth or fifth time. Those are the monsters. The salmon bravely returns once to procreate and die in the process. But grow rapidly and spend a longer life at sea, especially the king salmon species.

Bottom photo: These gentlemen were on the Olympic Peninsula. That is a winter steelhead, they migrate to spawn in winter months along coastal regions where the migration distances are often shorter and water flows less predictable in summer or fall. And a fish like that is a catch of a lifetime. Native fish are released to spawn successfully. A marked hatchery fish can be harvested. I’m headed for a winter steelhead trip soon. This fish is pure divinity to a fly angler. I’ll be using a centuries old method known as Spey Casting. Swimming a fly that looks similar to what they eat in the ocean. They only snap at presentations out of instinct as the rivers only hold enough food for the young and adult migrants aren’t in the river to feed. It’s a battle run. Sport anglers do not do damage to the population. Commercial over fishing and industrial pollution do the damage. And hydroelectric dams threaten their longevity as a species in the Columbia River system. The once greatest summer Steelhead run on earth. Along with possibly the largest salmon run in past times as well. Millions of indigenous peoples thrived here for millennia, eons.