The solunar tables said the first day of spring would be poor for fishing, but there was a window in the morning when fish would bite best. The forecast called for one low-pressure cell after another, but between storms, there would be a bump in the pressure. I always think back to what a friend of mine told me on a day not unlike this one.
When the river is high, green and dropping, when the pressure rises, when the moon is waxing, when there are fish in the river. That's when I want to fish.
My grandpa used to point me to the barometer and tell me when the fishing was good and when it wasn't. It didn't make a lot of sense then, but I watch the barometer before every trip now. We picked the day months before, hoping to maximize our chances of tangling with big steelhead.
"Steelhead are biters, dude!" I remind myself when the rainwater is dripping around the brim of my hat.
Dan Cardot and I made the drive the night before, ate too much fried food too late, and checked into one of those classic Highway 101 motel rooms with paper-thin walls, moldy carpets, and dirty blankets. We saved three bucks over the next more expensive motel. I would have paid $50 more to stay a mile away if I'd had any inkling of what an active pair our motel room neighbors were. That fresh ocean air can be invigorating.
After an hour of sleep and a Denny's breakfast, Brad Hanson met us in a pool of metal halogen light in the parking lot at Tillamook Sporting Goods. Only one river was in decent condition. The night was still in full Stygian blackness as we drove up the narrow road. I parked the Ford at the lower end of the first float and we drove five miles upstream, sipping at our coffees. In the dark, we pushed Hanson's Clackacraft off the trailer, tugged on waders, and, as the first sliver of light broke over the tops of the cedars, Hanson sat down at the sticks. We floated into the current. With a couple of other drift boats in the river, we traded first water for a few runs, then turned a corner with one boat in front of us. They pulled anchor to stay ahead.
Here, the river made a right turn, broke across a gravel bar on river right, and frothed over a ledge with a pocket behind a moss-covered boulder. On the far side, the bank ran jagged into the current. A nice riffle of broken water tumbled through aquamarine, then the river browned out over a gravel tail.
At the business end, our baits were steelhead roe with a small yarnie, sweetened up with Pro-Cure Winter Chrome. Cardot pitched a cast upriver; his bait and float splashed down along the seam, and the float tipped up, caught in the current. Cardot's bobber zagged upstream, and he set the hook into a silver streak of fury. It cartwheeled and tailwalked from the top of the run all the way to the tailout and flashed in the sun. Bright as a new-minted nickel.
For a few tense minutes, we thought we'd have to follow it through the rapids. We didn't care about first water anymore. We wanted this water. When Cardot took the pressure off, the fish nosed back into the current and came back into the pool. Hanson dropped the anchor and jumped over the side to net the fish over the gravel bar. Cardot cradled it a moment and let it kick into the green water. Five casts later, my float plunged, and we were fast into another, this one seven pounds, a rainbow-colored male.
Beneath us, the river was clearing, and the fish, fresh from the salt, kept eating our baits. Cardot's third fish ran the last 400 yards of our float, and Hanson netted it at the takeout. We drove back upstream to get Hanson's rig and then parked it at the next takeout down, breathing deep of that Tillamook dairy air.
When the rain started, we picked up a 12-pound wild hen, just four miles up from the salt. As wild as the morning of creation, as bright and fueled with the ocean's bounty as any fish I've ever caught. This one I wanted to keep, but I couldn’t and turned it back to make more wild steelhead.
The rivers begin to swell with winter steelhead in late December, and each tide brings in new fish through January and February. Pick a day. Put it on the calendar. Tie leaders, sharpen hooks, and fill spools with fresh line. March is prime for winter runs, but there are still fresh fish on every tide well into April.
If there is rain in the forecast, if the water is high, if a low-pressure system is coming in over the beach, it doesn't matter much. Soak the baits. Thump the hardware. Swing those flies deep and slow. Steelhead are biters, dude.
