To start off this post I want to begin in saying that when we started thinking about going to "try" and catch some steelhead I was a little bit unsure of going in the fact that the steelhead fish is a "fish of a 1000 casts". All I could think about was how sore my arm was going to be after casting my fly rod that many times to maybe catch a steelhead. Well for our trip a 1000 casts was not correct. The first three people in our group Alan, Russ and Rob got to the fishing area by Clayton, Idaho a few hours before us and had all ready caught 4 fish. Chase and I where pumped so we got on our gear and got in the water, within 10 min we had both landed a steelhead. It was awesome. We noticed that all of the worm dunkers/lead casters where fishing under this bridge below us, so eventually we moved down once some of the other fisherman moved out. Success was upon us. We caught fish after fish, all of us caught fish. It was great! I think we figured on the first day of fishing between the five of us we landed about 30 fish!!!, and lost or broke off at least half of that. All of the fish where in the 24 inch plus range with the biggest measuring close to 34 inch's. Everyone spirits where high and so glad that we all caught some of the biggest fish of our lives. Side note the big fish was my fish (Dave) and it took me 20-25 min. to get the big boy in. When I finally saw the fish in the net and really got to look at him I could not believe how big he was, I lost my breath I was so excited. It was AWESOME.
Second day after a stay at the Village Inn in Challis, Idaho we decided to head higher up to the Yankee Fork area of the Salmon River. The water was allot colder up here and there seemed to be not allot of places to catch fish. Boy where we wrong. We found an area that you could see the fish in the bottom of the river and started casting to them. Chase found the area and had three fish landed before we knew what was going on. Rob then followed and the fun was on again. We ended up switching out on this small spot and caught a bunch of fish. A wormdunker told us that he had seen people getting tickets in the area that we where fishing so we decided to take off before this happened to us. We ended up going down to the area that we fished the night before. The fishing was not as good, someone told us that when the water temps hit around 40 the fish will move upstream to cooler water. So we did not do as well, but we still caught a fish. We ended up catching about 25 fish that day. So about 50 fish total for a day and a half of fishing for five guys.
Side not on the way to Idaho Falls, we stopped and ate dinner at Pickles Place in Arco, Idaho great food, and the best spices that you can put on your food. I would recommend stopping there when you get a chance.
Saturday was fishing on the Henry's Fork. We floated down from the Vernon Bridge to the Chester Diversion. The fishing was not really all that good. It might have been that we did not have the right bugs, but we all at least caught a fish or two. It was a big let down from the steelhead fishing the past two days, but it was nice to get out and do a float.
Everyone seemed to have a great time and are planning the trip for next year as we speak.
Thanks Rob for convincing us to go and catch some of the funnest fish I have ever gone after.
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