Hard work equals rewards.

River at less than 1400 CFS and dropping, very clear water. Summer is finally here y'all.

After last weekend's effort shattered and shut me down, I decided to leave my one hole alone and find other water, again. This risk-reward game is always worth taking, the season is still long and knowing where fish will and won't hold helps narrow your target down.

The day started late. A 3:30 alarm either was not set or turned off subconsciously by an already week-worn self. So, the river was in sight by the bright and early time of 11:30 instead. Glorious.

I got to a new spot, and quickly discovered a lack of trail. Pffft, who needs a well-worn path anyway. I descended down a 70-foot thicket-covered slope and a decent stretch of saplings and nettles, making my way to the nearing sound of thundering water. I emerged scratched up, but I had made it.

Fishing yielded nothing for an hour. I was constantly changing depths of my float until I found the proper depth. It took awhile, an uneven bottom in many places and fishing light tackle made detecting jig-scrapage on the riverbed tough. Light jigs don't move your float like heavier ones do. Finally, the float sunk where there was absolutely no scrapage, and I set the hook.

Nobody home? Nope. Spit the hook before I could set. Bummer. Subsequent casts yielded nothing either.

Moving on, casting, mending, reeling, and repeating. In the moment, it seems second nature. And when the float sinks right next to a boulder against a seam, instincts kick in. And so they did. A high salute of the rod tip brought the seemingly long-forgotten, yet familiar feeling of powerful tugs on the end of the line.

Steelhead are funny creatures when they're hooked. This girl shook her head a bit, then let me reel her right in to the shore. But, naturally, as soon as she saw me, zzzzzzzziiiiiiinnnnnnggggg!!! Off she went. Peeling line fast, and beginning her aerial routine with a three foot vertical jump. Following that maneuver, she tailwalked for three yards, then thrashed violently for another couple, before jumping the opposite direction and taking off downstream, my rod following her every step of the way.

The feeling in your gut when you hook a steelhead is hard to describe. Anxious, agonizing, exhilarating? All come into play. It can be hard to enjoy the fight knowing so many things can go wrong! That sounds crazy, but the adrenaline kicks in hard for whatever reason. Maybe it's the fact that I work hard for every single steelie I hook, and the fish is not just any fish, but a culmination of all of my preparation and endless exploration. It's a rollercoaster of emotions that to me is hard to replicate.

By the time I tired the fish, I had fought her for at least five minutes, ID'd her as a Hatchery fish, and witnessed her break surface at least eight times. Finally, I was able to kneel down and tail the fish I'd been looking for and waiting for since my season ended short last winter due to school.

That's how the day ended. Nothing else happened, and nothing really needed to. Anything else was a bonus.

A group of kayakers headed downstream, and I yelled out to one of them "any fish down there?" His buddy then flipped his kayak and literally looked underwater for fish for a couple seconds. That cracked me up. Soon after, I headed back up the hill. I couldn't find my old path, so I made a whole new one back up. Yay!

I can only imagine the look on the people's faces on the road. I literally busted through a giant bramble out into the open, covered in scratches (and bleeding from a couple), completely drenched in sweat, muddy, and holding a 26" fish in my left hand.

Priceless.

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