The Magic of Fishing Luck

We did not expect to catch anything that early morning in January. The guides who met us in a greasy spoon in a small town with an Indian name couldn’t promise we’d get a bite, much less land a fish, but they were willing to try if we’d be ok drifting between tall cedars, watching Bald Eagles follow the river and waiting for a fight that might never come.

Hardcore anglers will tell you that when you fish for steelhead, you must be positive, ready, alert. However, when a winter-run hen slammed into my shivering Hotshot, I was neither alert nor ready. In the second-and-a­ half it took to get my numb hand out of a glove and onto the reel, the fish had hooked itself, turned, and was taking twelve-pound monofilament in rod-bucking surges. When I finally lifted the rod tip, the steelhead porpoised across the surface, flashing bright silver in the gray light.

I have to admit this is not what I had expected. My problem with the River is that it's too accessible. You need only study it from the state highway to see that the River is no remote British Columbia fishing camp; no isolated braided Yukon tributary where wealthy nimrods fly in to fight world class lunkers. In fact, the eddy where this steelhead hit is within four hours of downtown Seattle and while the fish ripped line off my screaming reel, a number of cars pulled to the side of the highway to watch the fight.

It was early November when Bernhard called to ask if I could spare a weekend in January to float the River.

My lone question was, “Can I use flies?”

 "Flies? For steelhead?” Bernhard hesitantly continued. “Uh, I don't believe so. You fish for steelhead with lures and roe ... not flies."

Bernhard, his brother Neal, and I may have attended high school together but I could see our preference in baits was going to present a problem. "Here in Idaho we do real well with, Skunks––Purple Perils––Sunrises,” I neglected to add that the success ratio with flies on the Salmon River often sinks to ninety man-hours to one fish.  Twelve hours per fish is considered a feeding frenzy. 

“Are you sure? Flies?" Bernhard questioned. 

"Positive," I replied.

"I'll check into it," he said.

That was the last I heard about the trip until January 2nd, when, after spending Christmas in Lacey with my sister Jannie, I was packing to drive back to Ketchum. Frankly, I had forgotten about the steelhead float and was unprepared for Bernhard’s call.

"We’re booked," he said. "Can you be ready to go tomorrow afternoon?"

"Booked for what?" I asked.

"Fishing the River! It's running clear and the fish are on the move!" 

“Bernhard, I’m leaving at 4:00 AM tomorrow to drive back to Idaho. The rig is packed, the passes are free of snow, I can’t fish the River.”

 Bernhard was adamant.“You committed.” 

“I know I did, but that was two months ago, and this is the first I’ve heard about it since.”

“You need to be on the river when the fish are moving.  Besides I paid your non-refundable deposit.”

"But the flies," I protested. "My gear is in Idaho."

"Forget the flies. We're using lures," he said.

It is an uncommonly beautiful River that not only moves in slow, sinuous curves, but sounds, looks and feels fishy. North of Seattle, the River has long since left the high country rapids and meanders at a stately pace, slipping from deep hole to deep hole as it winds toward a final confluence with the Pacific.

Depending on water levels that are regulated by both the incidence and intensity of northern Washington’s winter storms, the season runs from early December to mid-March. Jack has spent the past nine years guiding on the River, figures the big fish run from Christmas until mid-January. In the past, one local is reputed to have landed a fish that approached twenty-five pounds, but according to the same source, the fish was eaten and thus no records exist. The biggest fish Jack will admit to is a twenty-four pound hog. This season, his clients have landed a number of fish in the fifteen pound range––nice trophies considering most winter steelies run from ten to thirteen pounds. As the season progresses, snow melt causes water levels to fluctuate and the steelhead runs shrink in both numbers and size.

Though flies will work when the water levels drop, both Jack and guide Jody rely on Hotshots and Wee Warts. Bank fishermen favor roe bumped along the bottom. Jack feels that "basically it doesn't matter what you use––the most important thing is presentation. A steelhead is an opportunity biter. He's not biting because he's hungry; he bites out of agitation or curiosity, and the only way to attract his attention is to put the bait right in front of him. Present anything––flies, roe or lures––in the right manner and the steelhead will hit it." 

Lures are clearly working on this early January morning. A twelve-pound steelhead is ripping up the deep hole in front of us. Jody holds us steady in the current while I retrieve, then give line. A silver flash shows through the clear water as the steelie turns on its side. I tell Jody I want to beach the fish and he rows us to shore. A minute later, the large hen lays quietly in the clear shallows.

"Let's release her," I say as Jody slips the net toward the fish.

"She might be the only one you hook," he cautions. "Sometimes your luck can run that way."

Luck? How many times had I wrestled that demon? Worse for your heart than vodka martinis and about as forgiving as a great white, I've had it both ways––good and bad in about equal amounts, and the only thing I've learned is that it is as random as lightning and about as frightening. I'll admit I’m superstitious––believe I can petition luck­––especially fishing luck. This first hen nerves as a test and, while holding her upright in the current to revive her, I knew I was being judged––as I am judged by how I treat all first fish. If I turn her loose, whatever spiritual or physical forces control the ebb and flow of fishing luck will consider me with a bit more favor, which, in turn will produce more steelhead to release.

I try to explain this logic to Jody who, in turn, studies me with amusement. "It's your fish," he says, then pulls a pair of needle-nose pliers from his rear pocket and, with a flip of his wrist, sets her free.

"You watch now," I tell him. "Luck's on my side." 

But, in truth, luck drifts to Neal's side. We scrape across the flats below the hole where Neal hooks and releases another large hen, and shortly thereafter, in the hole below that, he hooks and releases another. Behind us, Ellis lands two and releases one, and off to our left, guide Wally, is working another fish toward shore.

Because of their reputations for producing action like this, guides Jody, Jack and Wally are typically booked a year in advance.

At lunch, Jack explains, "Many people will drift this same section and not get a strike. Knowing where the fish hold and positioning the boat in the current so the lure works the seam, we produce results––not always in these numbers, but our average is better than one fish per client."

After three hours on the River, we exceed that average, and throughout the early afternoon, we improve on it. Wally puts Bernhard into a nice fish, Jack’s boat hooks and loses a monster, and Neal lands another, which leaves me, for all my spiritualism, with little to do but watch people land fish and admire the passing cedars. Not that I’m complaining. The fifty-five degree temperatures and gently rocking boat are putting me to sleep and I have just closed my eyes when the buck hits.

"Missed it," Jody says as I lift the tip. 

The line bellies and I reel frantically. Nothing! I continue to spin the reel handle until the belly suddenly lifts out of the water and I feel weight.

Luck.

The fish surges toward us and, in seconds, races past the boat upstream.

"That's a big fish," Jody works to keep the bow facing the steelhead as the fish turns and runs back downstream. It passes under the boat as the reel shrieks and feeds line. The fish slows then stops and Jody reaches across to check the drag. "No tighter," he cautions. "When you rest, the fish rests. Keep the pressure on it." For the next twenty minutes, I reel when the fish tires and raise the tip and let the drag work when it runs.

The big steelhead eventually sounds into a dark hole where it sulks while I try and fail to move it.  When I finally lifts off the bottom, the bright fish takes back thirty yards of line. The fight settles into give and take. Jody tests the drag and shakes his head. There is no doubt the fish is big, but we are unprepared for the brilliant silver buck that slashes violently across the surface and sounds. Following a succession of short runs, the steelhead reluctantly turns on its side in the shallows.

It is huge!

Jody comments that he’s never seen a steelhead that came within five pounds of this one. “It might be a second, or even third run fish,” he guesses.

The steelhead’s back was as wide as an over-fed cocker spaniel. The buck’s belly is so fat that I have trouble steadying it for a picture.  And I continue to struggle to position the bright fish until Jody wades into the river next to me. 

"If you figure to release him, you'd better take that picture now or he won't make it, " he warns us.

Neal exposes one frame and I nurse the steelhead in the current until its color returns and the huge buck slowly swims off.

Luck.

As we walk back to the boat, Jody admits that the hole where we hooked the buck was not one where he'd normally expect a big fish to hold. Further proof is that he hasn’t hooked a big fish there before or since.

Luck.

Past experience revealed I should have lost the buck when the line went slack.

Luck.

With a setting sun glaring off the water and Neal's inexperience with the camera, the single frame should have never turned out. For that moment, time stood still. And, as for the luck that accrues to catch and release? From that point until we loaded the McKenzie boats on the trailers, five of us hooked, landed and released twenty-six steelhead.

Luck.