Fish story

Rod Koon of Mukilteo was the liveliest of the four Western Washington anglers when they showed up on the Snake River’s Heller Bar around 7 a.m. last Thursday.

“We stayed in a cabin last night and he’s the only one who got any sleep,” said fishing companion Brian Miller of Redmond. “Rod’s the snorer in the group.”

Dan Fleshman, a Clarkston native with a lifetime of steelheading experience on the Snake and Clearwater rivers, had already been rigging fishing gear for an hour on his jet boat at the lodge operated by Beamer’s Hells Canyon Tours.

“One of the secrets to a good fishing trip is bribing your guide when you first arrive,” Koon said as he handed Fleshman a carton of Camels.

The powerful steelhead – born in the rivers, matured and muscled in the ocean before returning years later to spawn – lures anglers from far and wide and hooks money from their pockets for everything from $4 fishing lures to $40,000 jet boats, guide fees and more.

“This is our seventh consecutive year coming back here to fish for steelhead with Dan in early November. We just mark it in our calendars. The wives are cool with it.”

Jerry Grayson of Everett came aboard with a small cooler full of wiggling sand shrimp. “We don’t get fresh bait like this up here,” Fleshman said, running his fingers through the shrimp like a pirate savoring a chest full of looted gold coins.

But when Brian Miller came aboard and said he was from Snohomish, it dawned on me that these anglers hailed from legendary steelheading waters such as the Skagit, Pilchuck, Stillaguamish and Skykomish.

“You guys come from great steelhead country,” I said. “Why do you drive clear across the state to fish the Snake?”

“Because this is much greater steelhead country,” Rod said.

“There’s no place like the Lewiston and Orofino areas,” Miller said. “Our rivers don’t have this kind of scenery,” he added, pointing to the sunshine on the mountains rising up from the canyon and referring to the bighorn sheep they regularly see on their visits.

“And there’s no comparison in the fishing.”

“West Side fishermen go out all year to catch two or three steelhead,” Koon said. “Over here, the fishing is slow if you don’t catch that many or more in a day.”

The guide deadpanned through the reunion. He made no promises.

“The fishing has been spotty,” Fleshman told me before his guests arrived. “One day it’s extremely hot, the next day it’s hard to buy a fish.”

Ed Schriever, Idaho Fish and Game regional fish manager in Lewiston, said virtually the same thing when contacted a few days later.

“Overall the fishing has been pretty good, but it’s been a bit of a puzzler,” he said. “We have a very experienced fleet of fishing guides who are usually very consistent in putting fish in the boat, but even they have experienced hot and cold fishing this year.

“We can’t put a finger on it, but we know that fish are spread throughout the entire system. That’s the phenomenon we saw last year, with a lot of the Snake River fish migrating early all the way to Hells Canyon Dam during the fall season. We’ve already trapped all of our brood requirements at the Hells Canyon complex.

“Those upstream fish are no longer available to anglers in the Lewiston to Heller Bar area.”

But there’s still plenty of fish to be caught.

The 151,000 steelhead counted over Lower Granite Dam exceeds the 10-year average. On the day we fished, you never looked for long up and down the Snake without seeing someone on a boat wielding a net to land a fish.

And shore anglers were catching fish, too. Frustrated by windy conditions on the Snake, Richard Rivers of Spokane put away his fly rod and took up a spinning rod rigged with a gold and red heavy Pixie lure left over from an Alaska salmon fishing trip. On his first cast he landed a bright 12-pounder.

“That’s the biggest steelhead I’ve ever caught,” he said after releasing the wild fish.

“There are still lots of Clearwater River fish in the area, all the way from Lower Granite Dam and Orofino,” Schriever said. “Some years, as many as 30 percent of the (Clearwater-bound) fish that cross Lower Granite in fall may not leave the pool until spring.”

While the Snake River fish tend to average 6 to 8 pounds, “The Clearwater fish are really nice,” Schriever said. “We’ve seen quite a few 38-inchers.”

Significant changes in flow and temperature affect fish movements. “Two weeks ago we had a weather event that doubled the flow in the Clearwater from 2,500 cfs to 5,000,” he said. “Those kinds of things can trigger fresh fish to move upstream from the Lower Granite pool.

“Even though the run is pretty much stalled until spring, the fish move around and re-adjust themselves.”

Fleshman was prepared to adjust his fishing tactics as needed.

“When these fish first arrive and the water temperatures are still warm, backtrolling plugs is more effective than fishing bait,” he said.

With the water temps still in the mid 40s and fairly warm last week, he started the day splitting the difference. He removed the hooks from Hot Lips plugs – his personal favorite brand – and attached a swivel to the front hook ring.

From the swivel he ran about 4 feet of leader to a pair of in-line hooks, which were baited with a shrimp that was wrapped in place with Dacron line.

A small Corkie and a bit of red yarn were on the leader above the hooks.

With four anglers fishing off the boat, the leader extending from the plugs presents a higher risk of tangling with another line. Indeed, after some downtime for untangling and still no fish, Fleshman switched to plugs only.

Fleshman had two dozen Hot Lips lures in various colors hanging along the windshield of his boat. “I always replace the soft brass hooks that come from the factory with Gamakatsu hooks,” he said.

“Dan is the master of backtrolling plugs,” Koon said. “We’ve come back and fished in our own boats and we’re spinning the boat around, tangling lines. This is a lot harder than it looks.

“He’s basically herding the fish and working the lures downstream and and into their faces until they strike,” Grayson said.

Several boats in the neighborhood were catching steelhead while “boondogging” or sidedrifting – going downstream with the current and using the tolling motor just enough to keep the boat floating at the same speed as the shrimp-baited hooks the anglers are bouncing along the bottom.

“Steelhead hit shrimp hard like they hit a lure,” Fleshman said. “The take is much lighter on eggs.”

The anglers might have applied pressure to start drifting bait, too, but around 9:30 a.m., Grayson”s rod doubled over.

“That’s the $100 fish,” Miller said, referring to the bet the foursome had made to reward the angler who caught the first steelhead of their four-day trip.

It was a wild fish that had to be released immediately, but the ice was broken and the jeering started.

“See what that money-greed thing does,” joked Hurban. “We used to cheer and be happy for the other guy who caught a steelhead; now we’re praying that the fish breaks off.”

Minutes later, Grayson landed a keeper – bright hatchery hen. It was the second of five fish the anglers would eventually hook that morning, but they called a timeout and asked the guide to take them to shore.

Seasoned West Side fishermen tend to have a deeper appreciation for fish quality than most East Side anglers.

They immediately cut behind the gills to bleed the fish, a time-honored practice that enhances the quality of the meat. Then they cleaned the fish, removed the eggs for future bait-fishing trips, and put both the eggs and the fish on ice.

“Now we can get back to fishing,” Grayson said. “We get so few fish where we come from, we really take care of the ones we get.”