Took a sanity day off work last Friday, hoping some fish had made the run up out of the lake after the rains on Wednesday. We started down near the mouth on 20 mile and in an hour or so I only had one small hookup on a small run of water that was most likely overlooked by most. It quickly broke me off on a rock and that was that.
We moved on over to 16 mile and parked near route 5 and walked upstream. There was nothing until you came to a larger hole and there were probably 10 people standing around this hole fishing to half a dozen steelhead that looked like they were totally dazed. I did try and fish a small run of whitewater on the way out of there and oddly caught a 5" brookie on a hairs ear. Must of washed out of a small trib or something.
We headed back toward 20 mile to try and fish farther up the stream figuring maybe the steelhead ran up farther then we had anticipated. After some hiking upstream we came into some nice runs and pools holding a decent amount of fish, and the three of us found ourselves to be alone so we did pretty well with at least 4 hookups each and we landed 6 of them. Half way through catching some fish a guy came up, saw we were catching fish, and went back downstream and must of rung the siren because sure enough, in the distance we saw a herd of 8 guys come sloshing upstream to stand right where we were. It was like watching zombies coming over the horizon. With that, we departed.
Had to work pretty hard for the fish we caught, but was a fun day out with my buddies. We kept a few of the fish and after making a pit stop at a winery on route 5 for a couple bottles of wine we headed to Poor Richards to trade them in for smoked steelhead.
Overall, I will be waiting for my next trip up until they get a lot more flow on a consistent basis.
