Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Los Quatros Amigos


Three buddies and I traveled north to Pulaski for some true winter steelheading in typical Great Lakes conditions. The temperature was low and over the course of two days, it rarely stopped snowing. Each morning we awoke to 6-8 inches of snow that added onto the few inches received throughout the day. The temperature and wind resulted in frozen reels, lines, and flies, but we overcame that to have a successful trip. For my three buddies, it was their first time on the Salmon River chasing steelhead and they were able to experience some scenic conditions. Two of us focused on indicator fishing, while the other two swung flies. Both methods worked and we were able to get into a few slabs in the midst of a snow covered landscape.






Going for a slide...


About to face plant. 



Welcome to my world...


That awkward moment when a steelhead takes a swung fly and you realize a little bit of snow froze your spool in place...



After a few tense moments and a lot of blowing on the frozen reel, everything worked out...



Favorite run...


Creepy


Snow Geese


Austin concentrating on his swing...




Helping Pat with his drift...



An egg eater...



I prefer the armpit hand warm up...


Austin prefers doing pushups...


We blazed our own trails...


Eric changing flies and working a seam...


They wanted to go for a hike, so we walked a very large loop...



Walking in a winter wonder land...


We also fished Altmar with success, no surprise there...


Switch style...




Eric about to land his first SR steelhead...


A fat hen...


Best friends sharing a moment.


Sure, I'll swing under the bridge...


Whammo...


I then gave the rod to Austin to swing for the first time, he missed two fish before hooking up at nightfall and fighting a good fish until a tree broke the tippet...His exact words were:

"I'm never nymphing again".

Touche. 




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice report - thats some dedicated fishing right there....

dmnaz1 said...

Great photos. Looks like an excellent trip

LQN said...

Feel cold just looking at those pictures, looks like a successful trip to me though!