Old Steelhead Reports

Salmo_g said:
I'm reading Enos Bradner's 1950 book, Northwest Angling. The steelhead fishing really was something to write home about, and there were no hatchery steelhead. All wild. And almost always killed when landed. It's hard to think about now, but it really was only a few years ago that you could reliably fish for steelhead in 160 different rivers and streams in WA state and expect to catch one. To think that number has shrunk to just a handful of streams with far more restrictive seasons is just so damn depressing!

The Fortson Hole photo above made me think back. I can't possible remember how many steelhead I caught out of that one pool, especially before 1980 when it was a long pool of 2 distinct sections. A friend of mine and his brother somehow had the advance knowledge when the first returns of Skamania summer steelhead came to the NF Stilly, probably 1968. They were experience conventional gear fishermen, but real crackers at fly fishing. They were at Fortson at daylight on opening day (Saturday of Memorial Day weekend) with no one else there. They hooked fish after fish, losing most of them, but finally landing a couple limits between them. That hole must have been plugged with fish. Fishing it in the 70s, if the water was clear enough on opening day, I never counted more than 10 or 12 steelhead, but by 4th of July there were always 60 or more. Steelhead hatcheries produced some incredible returns of adult fish from their outset up through the 1980s before the downturn began in 1990 - 92.

Those were the days, my friend . . .
Click to expand...
Yeah, Skamania fish. I remember standing on the old "Steel bridge" at the Washougal River Mercantile. Looking down into the pool, with easily 200+ chrome summers swimming in a huge circle. Literally a living whirlpool of steelhead. Circa June/July 1979.
 
Great pics all.

I missed out on most of it but got to experience some of the 90's and on. My fishing partner/mentor/cousin and I mostly focused on some of the smaller, more obscure rivers on the hatchery plant list. Tribs or portions of larger rivers outside of the hatchery zones. We generally saw few other anglers and found enough fish to make it worth it. I still find myself wanting to hold back on naming specific rivers even though they're named in the list Stone posted and most haven't seen plants in a decade plus. The opportunity they provided is all but gone now. Some family pics:

NF Toutle pre eruption
3345f32e5a2b4da376180eb98ea2b711-0.jpg

I took the photo but don't remember the river:

61.jpg

Upper Sky:

20241220_083923.png

Sky trib:

20241220_084221.png
 
Hiked down and swung this spot for the 2nd time today. Expectations would've been pretty high in a riffle like this 30+ years ago, but times have definitely changed.

Screenshot_20241220_140305_Gallery.jpg

Just hoping at this point I'll connect with something before I get to triple digit skunkings. Good workouts and mental health breaks if nothing else.
 
SKYKO said:
Thanks for posting, both fun and somewhat sad to remember.
Click to expand...

Very true. I caught my first steelhead in 1968 on the Puyallup. 1985 was an exceptional year there. WDFW stats had over 10k sport caught fish that year. Fast forward fifteen years to 2000, if I recall correctly it was down to about 180 or so on the main stem. They don’t plant it any longer. I think one of the last returns had like nine fish show up at the hatchery. The tribe may have a broodstock program on the Stuck, but I’m not sure.
It’s open early, but I’d only really want to fish it again in late February or March which likely will never happen.
Some crappy pictures of a couple non fly caught fish. One kept and one released. The one I kept was caught on Dec 18th,1984 out of the Puyallup.
The released one was the first of three I caught out of a hole in five casts. Obviously never did that again. 😉
Last steelhead I caught as well as the last
time I fished for them was 2014.
SF

IMG_0118.jpegIMG_0117.jpeg
 
When I was a young kid with a Spey rod fishing the S Rivers in the 90s it really felt like something special and that is why I fell in love with the sport. I also saw some whale tails caught on the Skagit/Sauk by my mentors and random people to give me dreams of those beasts. It probably took a decade but I finally got that 20 pound class fish. If you aren’t making memories you aren’t living…
 
When I was younger, snow on the ground meant days off work, and so many of my memories of good fish are colored white.. with early morning trips through snow covered roads to fish nearly vacant rivers.
I remember hitting the Sauk on March 1st or 2nd, opening day or so of the C and R season in 1989 or maybe it was 1990...very few folks braved the shitty icy roads, as it was like a snow tunnel driving along the river but there were fish to be had, and hardcore anglers (i believe Les Johnson was out that day, as we chatted at the Suiattle confluence, he showed me a Steelhead Bunny) and while cold and icy, fish were around, and found themselves fooled by my early attempts at Spey Flys.
 
HauntedByWaters said:
When I was a young kid with a Spey rod fishing the S Rivers in the 90s it really felt like something special and that is why I fell in love with the sport. I also saw some whale tails caught on the Skagit/Sauk by my mentors and random people to give me dreams of those beasts. It probably took a decade but I finally got that 20 pound class fish. If you aren’t making memories you aren’t living…
Click to expand...
Oh yeah a spey rod in those days meant windcutter type lines… long belly spey lines. Unless I was still cluelesss. Which could be. . 🤣
 
Sauk river was fun. 🤩

Sky at Proctor creek and the Dorman road access were fun.

Money creek area was fun

Use to hike way-way above high bridge. Some inviting fishing holes back in those days.

So many other places.

Ah the memories. Sorry didn’t carry a camera around then. But I swear I caught some. Both gear (devils spoon, glo worms, etc on a glass eagle claw and Garcia Mitchell 300… like someone’s other outfit 🤣 ) and fly fishing too.
 
Porter2 said:
Sauk river was fun. 🤩

Sky at Proctor creek and the Dorman road access were fun.

Money creek area was fun

Use to hike way-way above high bridge. Some inviting fishing holes back in those days.

So many other places.

Ah the memories. Sorry didn’t carry a camera around then. But I swear I caught some. Both gear (devils spoon, glo worms, etc on a glass eagle claw and Garcia Mitchell 300… like someone’s other outfit 🤣 ) and fly fishing too.
Click to expand...
Hey, what’s so funny…?😂
 
SeaRunner said:
Great pics all.

I missed out on most of it but got to experience some of the 90's and on. My fishing partner/mentor/cousin and I mostly focused on some of the smaller, more obscure rivers on the hatchery plant list. Tribs or portions of larger rivers outside of the hatchery zones. We generally saw few other anglers and found enough fish to make it worth it. I still find myself wanting to hold back on naming specific rivers even though they're named in the list Stone posted and most haven't seen plants in a decade plus. The opportunity they provided is all but gone now. Some family pics:

NF Toutle pre eruption
View attachment 136161

I took the photo but don't remember the river:

View attachment 136162

Upper Sky:

View attachment 136163

Sky trib:

View attachment 136164
Click to expand...
That fish from the upper Sky with you in a t-shirt is a 10/10 summer run. What a beast.
 
Aah the good old days!

I began steelhead fishing in 1959 and over the years since I consider at least on North Puget Sound the early/mid 1980s to be the very peak of some great steelhead fishing. Good numbers of fish and for those early converts to CnR steelhead fishing some truly amazing fishing!
the cherry on that fishing was 1983 where for some reason there were exceptional numbers of 6- and 7-year-old fish. That single season accounted for approximately 1/2 of my 20#+ fish (that included a hatchery summer-run).

During the 1970s to the early 1990s those early returning 3-salt hatchery summer steelhead were a fish to be experienced! Chrome bright, full of "ee and vinegar" with their explosive response to being hook they typically felt the angler unsure of who was in control of the situation.

Yes, those were indeed the "good ole days". I feel sorry for those who entered steelhead fishing in the last 25 years. It may now take a decade or more for them in encounter the number of fish that many were encountering in a single year "back then". The refinement of our presentations and understanding of those steelhead benefits greatly from the feed-back from those encounters.

Curt
 
Stonedfish said:
Is the person on the right in the second picture wearing one of those chest mounted reels?
Used to run into an old guy named Glen who used one on the NF of the Toutle before the eruption.
SF
Click to expand...
Honestly I have no idea. Guy in the middle is my grandpa and left is his brother. I cant remember the guy on the right's name but remember bumping into him a few times with my grandpa back in the 90s on the sky.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top