Too tired to write a full report after working a 12 hour shift at the steel factory. Yesterday was trout opener and we finally had access to some headwater areas where the steelheads were spawning. We mainly fished the pool for some hungry post-spawn steelhead. Most of the females were post-spawn already. Hopefully they'll be around for another 2 weeks. I'm contemplating taking a weekday off for another go at it. Yesterday, we waited for 1 hour for parking at 5am...people were already fishing by 12am and the lot was full by 2am as I was told.

Ken - 8 steelheads (lost a bunch to log jams and hooks coming out on jumps)

Andrea - 5 steelheads (not sure how many lost)

Michael - at least 4 steelheads (we fished apart for most of the day)

Matt - at least 6 steelheads, 3 white sucker (we fished apart for most of the day)

I fished with Andrea for most of the day. We did split apart to explore little slots, runs and holes throughout the day. He was lucky that every time he was hooked up, I happened to come looking for him (whenever he was gone for a while, I suspected he's hooked up, haha). I landed a couple of decent fish without any cameraman so I just quickly unhooked and released them.

I have a couple of videos of hook ups...but one fish ran into the log jam and busted me off...the other fish head shook on the surface and the hook came out. Again, every time I start filming, I lost fish...so I stop using the cursed GoPro. I may post the videos later...pretty sweet to watch me drift and see the float goes down...and the subsequent short run.

Just got to the first unoccupied pool, saw a fish resting in front of a rock...5 drifts later...BAM!



Then I lost one fish after another 30 minutes. We moved and after another hour, I hooked this one and handed the rod to Andrea.



As the water warmed up, the day got brighter and the sun came out, the fish turned on.



















My suspicion was right...we hooked and landed the same fish a couple of hours apart! Look at the spot pattern on these two fish, and the scar pattern. It's the exact same fish.

I hooked it first and handed the rod for Andrea to fight it...we gave it a good release



Then Andrea hooked it again later somewhere downstream from where I first hooked it...



Hungry fish...they LOVED nightcrawlers! It's still swimming out there somewhere.