Turkey Day Steelhead

Stonedfish

Stonedfish

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Used to be common to catch your first winterrun of the season around the Thanksgiving holiday or even earlier. Kind of a thing of the past now with few opportunities, especially in the Puget Sound region. We always got our first of the year from the Puyallup.
Where did you usually get your first winterrun of the year?
SF
 
I have a ritual of fishing the day after Thanksgiving. Caught one of my largest hatchery heads a few years back on the 24th.

B524D089-5F86-4A92-BCEA-EE2DBF7CDC56.jpeg

I was already interested in swinging flys from doing so in MT, this fish solidified the obsession. She took a bruised leech.

Might be coho fishing this year, but you never know if an early winter shows up in a run 🤘
 
Used to fish every T-Day at first light, would hit up a couple of local spots then head over to the folks for football and food. Friday morning got a bit more serious, with another first light adventure, same with Saturday...all day long.
Was younger then, but almost always caught fish. Sometimes Steelhead, but some late Coho could make a day too.
First light is in the past now...
Come to think of it, so is last light.
😅
 
Divad said:
I have a ritual of fishing the day after Thanksgiving. Caught one of my largest hatchery heads a few years back on the 24th.

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I was already interested in swinging flys from doing so in MT, this fish solidified the obsession. She took a bruised leech.

Might be coho fishing this year, but you never know if an early winter shows up in a run 🤘
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Nice.
Keeping the dream alive!
SF
 
It was the Stilly or the Sky for a number of years. Then the Queets/Salmon when that early run was strong. Kinda' bagged the whole early winter steelhead notion a decade or so ago as run strengths declined and mainly just fish CNR for wild winter runs when and where feasible.
 
Have your ever wondered how a USA Presidential pardon turkey would taste? 😉

I mean that’s got to be be better than grass fed/no hormones/ no antibiotics /free range/ even wild bird? Right? A presidential pardon turkey with a name maybe? Eating Roy tonight? Eating Donald tonight. 🧐
 
About 6-7 years ago I took my daughter out for a early steelhead trip to one of my favorite haunts. I put her on this seem that you don’t have to cast very far and it was her first time fishing sink tips on a Spey rod. I asked her if see wanted some coaching and after a few casts I realized she was good to go. She told me to head up and follow her and leave her alone which I was good with. About 200 yds upriver was a guy fishing gear and as I walked up river he started waving his arms at me and I was thinking I this guy having a problem with me getting near him. What he was trying to signal that my daughter had a fish on and it was going crazy, I turned around and she had a chrome fish on and had clamped down on the reel and I dropped my rod and down to help her land the fish and explained that the reel has a drag and let the fish run. She lost the fish in close and I realized there were fish moving and in she was in the spot. We checked the knots and hook and everything was fine and she told me to head back and fish and I head back up and the gear guy started waving his arms again and I turn around and she has another fish on. I ended up being a gillie that day and to this day she brags about out fishing me and I didn’t wet a line. Early season can be hit and miss but if you hit it right I can be lots of fun and the only way to know if fishing is good is to hit the river. That day she hooked three steelhead and lost them all mostly due being her first time and we had a couple gear guys join us and they landed a couple including a 22lb hatchery fish.
 
Denwor54 said:
About 6-7 years ago I took my daughter out for a early steelhead trip to one of my favorite haunts. I put her on this seem that you don’t have to cast very far and it was her first time fishing sink tips on a Spey rod. I asked her if see wanted some coaching and after a few casts I realized she was good to go. She told me to head up and follow her and leave her alone which I was good with. About 200 yds upriver was a guy fishing gear and as I walked up river he started waving his arms at me and I was thinking I this guy having a problem with me getting near him. What he was trying to signal that my daughter had a fish on and it was going crazy, I turned around and she had a chrome fish on and had clamped down on the reel and I dropped my rod and down to help her land the fish and explained that the reel has a drag and let the fish run. She lost the fish in close and I realized there were fish moving and in she was in the spot. We checked the knots and hook and everything was fine and she told me to head back and fish and I head back up and the gear guy started waving his arms again and I turn around and she has another fish on. I ended up being a gillie that day and to this day she brags about out fishing me and I didn’t wet a line. Early season can be hit and miss but if you hit it right I can be lots of fun and the only way to know if fishing is good is to hit the river. That day she hooked three steelhead and lost them all mostly due being her first time and we had a couple gear guys join us and they landed a couple including a 22lb hatchery fish.
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Neither of you will ever forget that. Those days are a treasure. I was lucky enough to have one of those with my 13 year old youngest son on the flats just south of Chassahowitzka Point. Around 2 in the afternoon after grabbing the leader and breaking off his 3rd Homosassa tarpon of the day I turned to him and said "Will, we've got about an hour or two left. What fly do you think we should tie on?" He looked at me, arms still shaking a bit covered with sweat, and said "Dad put on anything other than that orange one."
 
In the 1960s have a tradition of fishing several days over the Thanksgiving weekend (home from college) on the Snoqualmie. Nearly every year some one in the group would catch a fish and some years multiple fish were caught. Those were indeed the good old days!

My last Thanksgiving weekend steelhead was some 20 years ago, a wild winter on the Skagit.

Curt
 
Stonedfish said:
Used to be common to catch your first winterrun of the season around the Thanksgiving holiday or even earlier. Kind of a thing of the past now with few opportunities, especially in the Puget Sound region. We always got our first of the year from the Puyallup.
Where did you usually get your first winterrun of the year?
SF
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Samish river. November 25 or so.
 
Starting fishing now it’s crazy to think how steelheading has changed. It wasn’t that long ago it feels like every little crick or stream could be a place to find steelhead if you knew what you were doing, now I am enthralled by the idea of even seeing someone else catch one.

The idea of a Samish Steelhead existing is crazy to me. Then you read local history and find that a lot of our tiny little run off creeks once had steelhead in them
 
Kashf said:
Starting fishing now it’s crazy to think how steelheading has changed. It wasn’t that long ago it feels like every little crick or stream could be a place to find steelhead if you knew what you were doing, now I am enthralled by the idea of even seeing someone else catch one.

The idea of a Samish Steelhead existing is crazy to me. Then you read local history and find that a lot of our tiny little run off creeks once had steelhead in them
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Reading Samish Gold blew my mind….
 
Forgot I had this photo upstairs in the tying room. This was Will's first one that day, the only one we took the time to shake hands with. One of the other guides was close to us when we were finishing the battle and came over to snap this shot. He guessed the fish was pushing 160. I don't think he was very far off. Probably the largest one that I had the privilege of getting that personal and up close to.

PXL_20231123_044752430.MP.jpeg
 
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Stonedfish said:
Used to be common to catch your first winterrun of the season around the Thanksgiving holiday or even earlier. Kind of a thing of the past now with few opportunities, especially in the Puget Sound region. We always got our first of the year from the Puyallup.
Where did you usually get your first winterrun of the year?
SF
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Black (Chrome?) Friday used to be my winter steel season starter. A bit early, but had success often enough to make it worth the try. And still plenty of summer/fall fish being the home Skamania crick. One memorable post T-day in the late 80's I banked a pair of pilot-run winters, and released another two wild fall fish. Neither of which looked like they'd been in the river more than a week or so. One of the fall fish sticks out in my memory and makes me regret not carrying a camera back then. Not so much because it was in the mid-to-high teens, but deep-bodied and a golden coloration more like that of a cutt. Definitely all steelhead though, with a wide blush of light pink from cheek to tail just starting to show. Haven't seen one like that since.
 
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My earliest winter run was Nov 24ish. The chums were thick at the head of a nice long run and I had released several when the next one just felt different, not the long slow....pull....pull....pull..but the typical steelhead slashes and then a nice run. I seem to remember getting another winter run out of that slot. The hard part in those days was weeding through chum in late Nov

Oh, and believe it or not, not all native winters come back Jan-april, we would get one here and there in late Nov, they were pure chrome and fought amazing
 
11/23/95 from Fortson Hole on the NF Stilly. Fresh 8lb hatchery hen that took a #4 Popsicle.
Stillyhensnow.jpg

Yes, that's snow on the gravel parking lot. Caught and released a 5lb hatchery summer buck that morning too! Also on the #4 Popsicle. Fortson wasn't my favorite place to fish, but when it had summer fish along with fresh winter fish in it could be stupid good.

For the Sky, I would always start fishing just after Thanksgiving. The 1st week of December was always my best week for hatchery fish. The run there in Sultan, above Mann Rd bridge was a great spot. You could start at the top and have a legit chance at steelies right away and then fish all the way down the run until you started catching chum.
Christmas week was probably the 2nd most productive week. Seems like we always got heavy rain or nasty snow just before or just after Christmas so then it would be off the first couple weeks of January. And many years, the hatchery fish were already past Sultan by mid-January. I would usually take February off and then hit the C & R season March & April. Man I miss those days!
 
skyriver said:
11/23/95 from Fortson Hole on the NF Stilly. Fresh 8lb hatchery hen that took a #4 Popsicle.
View attachment 92515

Yes, that's snow on the gravel parking lot. Caught and released a 5lb hatchery summer buck that morning too! Also on the #4 Popsicle. Fortson wasn't my favorite place to fish, but when it had summer fish along with fresh winter fish in it could be stupid good.

For the Sky, I would always start fishing just after Thanksgiving. The 1st week of December was always my best week for hatchery fish. The run there in Sultan, above Mann Rd bridge was a great spot. You could start at the top and have a legit chance at steelies right away and then fish all the way down the run until you started catching chum.
Christmas week was probably the 2nd most productive week. Seems like we always got heavy rain or nasty snow just before or just after Christmas so then it would be off the first couple weeks of January. And many years, the hatchery fish were already past Sultan by mid-January. I would usually take February off and then hit the C & R season March & April. Man I miss those days!
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It wasn’t Thanksgiving but it was the week before at Fortson a long time ago, I was using a two hand rod and dropping a purple egg sucking leech behind a boulder and hooking a fish on each cast. I would let it rest for about 10 minutes and then cast again and wham. I hooked 8 before the gear boys started throwing everything into my spot and the bite was off. It was a mix of summers and winters that day.

It sure isn’t like that anymore. I go there with gear now and maybe hook 1. My buddy and I each killed 2 hatchery fish around Xmas last year but then had a few days with little success so we just got lucky with timing. Fortson used to be absolutely packed with people getting steelhead all over the place. I guess that’s my good old days.
 
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