Fished the past weekend on the Clearwater River in Orofino, ID with a friend, but unfortunately the main river was blown out running well over 20,000 cfs and our usually spots were all unfishable. We went to plan B and fished the Northfork below Dworshak Dam and so did everybody else. Lots of people, but also lots of fish, and they were jumping and rolling everywhere. I only managed to hook, land and release 1 wild fish on Saturday and my friend was skunked. Three guys that fished right next to us absolutely slayed them fishing with beads under a float. They probably hooked at least 20 steelhead between them and it was very humbling and frustrating for me to witness, but at the same time I used it as a valuable lesson and learned a lot about the presentation of a bead used under a float. I realized right there and then that I've been fishing wrong with beads for the past 3 years! I didn't realize that the bead presentation could greatly improve your success just by how it is rigged under the float. The next day my friend and I used that new information about bead fishing and applied it on the exact same hole. Our luck turned around and we landed four keepers out of 6 takedowns for just the morning bite. One thing I love about steelhead fishing is you learn something all the time that keeps drawing you back to the river. If your headed down to the Clearwater River, expect very high flows and unfishable waters unless your fishing the Northfork or Southfork, but there are still a lot fish.

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