2015/16 Winter Steelhead Recap – Photoblog Part II

Picking up from my first blog post ending…

https://outdooraddictions.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/201516-winter-steelhead-recap-photoblog-part-i/

The weather on the mainland while I was over helping Kitty move co-operated nicely. I hadn’t yet fished the Vedder, and the water was dropping nicely. I figured I may as well try and check this river off the list while I was home. 4 hours on the river over 2 days produced 4 fish, of which this was the nicest.

My first steelhead of the year was a large hatchery buck which I released… river #5

A beautiful large buck taken on a 2/5 white silver R&B spoon

Soon I was back on the island. The weather looked alright, so I headed up north to meet up with a buddy. After the first day, the weather forecast changed again to blow out rain conditions (surprise!), so I only got the one half day to fish. The bright side was I got to land a fish out of river #6.

A beautiful fat doe on river #6

2/5 silver/orange R&B hammered on the swing

The next couple days the rain came down heavy and blew everything out. I got one day out on some smaller flows that normally hold their colour. I ended up landing a winter fish out of my 7th river, and then landed a summer run kelt out of another. The second one was new, so it was cool to at least figure out where a fish or two might hold. I did another day soon after on the drop, returning to the river where I had lost 3 fish with Kitty, and finally managed to land a small winter doe bringing the river count up to 8.

A dusky, nice sized buck for river #7

Little bullet on river #8

Again, the weather looked to be clearing again, so I quickly packed up and headed north again. This time it worked out. The weather was awesome for the 7 days up there, and the rivers came into perfect shape. Sadly, we were late for most of the rivers by a bit and many of the fish were either dark or just not there. It was still a successful trip none-the-less. On the way up I hit a river that I try to get onto once a year (mostly because it is known for big fish). It was super busy and there were over a dozen parties out. I didn’t think I had much of a chance starting late like I did, but the silver/orange 2/5 R&B swung under a tree came through again and I landed this beautiful doe to bring my river count up to 9.

Fish selfie on river 9

Chromer spring doe on a silver/orange 2/5 R&B

Once up in the north island, Marc and I hit as many new flows as we could. We just looked at a map, checked off some river we had heard about or did research on, and then went. We had many adventures along the way, including flat tires, and getting lost in the dark nearly 2 km still away from the vehicle. Many lessons were learnt, and many fish were caught. This was my last stint of fishing on the island before returning to the mainland, and I only eventually made it to 12 rivers in which I landed fish. I lost fish out of another 7 rivers which would have brought me up to 19, one away from my goal. Kitty also managed fish out of 3 rivers fishing with me that I never landed one out of – bringing our combined total to 15 rivers with winter fish tailed between the 2 of us. Overall, for the poor season with tough conditions, I felt it went fairly well, and I have more rivers to hit for next year. In total I fished 35 different places with spectacular scenery, and hooked (or saw friends hook/land fish) out of all but 5. Below are pictures for the last 3 rivers I landed fish on over the 7 days of fishing (including some rivers where my buddy Marc landed fish on – he was trying to get to 10 rivers as well). I also threw in some cool scenery/river shots.

A doe caught on a spinner in river #10

A beautiful chromer that was sight fished out of a tail out

Marc’s 7th river

An amazing run

Marc with a sea licer bullet on a small flow!

Marc on his 8th river

This fish would have been river #11, but he popped off after 3 more jumps

A dirty buck out of river #11. The most insane fight I’ve ever had.

We lost some nice fish out of this run… what would have been river #12 for me

Wading through some sketchy canyon water on a small stream

My last island fish… river #12 a dirty buck near the end of the season

After that last stint on the island, I got to come back home and fish the Vedder for a week before starting work. Way back at the beginning of this recap (in part I – https://outdooraddictions.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/201516-winter-steelhead-recap-photoblog-part-i/) I mentioned that Kitty really wanted to land a Vedder winter steelhead. She finally did it with this chromer little doe. A perfect ending to the year in which all of our goals weren’t quite completed.

Kitty’s Vedder doe was her 7th river for the year

A pretty doe taken on a deadly jig, ghost shrimp imitation

I also ended up landing a couple good ones to totally cap off my season before starting work and switching gears to fishing lakes for British Columbia Interior rainbow trout.

A big, beautiful, late running chrome doe taken on the ghost shrimp jig

A fat wild doe late season

A splashy release to end the season

 

I hope you enjoyed the rather late recap. Hopefully next year will be more of the same (but with better numbers of fish?). Stay tuned for some lake fishing pictures and write ups that are soon to come!

Cheers,

Dan