5 a.m. and the alarm goes off. I have been lying awake in my tent for the last hour waiting for it. I throw my gear into a bag and out of the tent and go check to see if Alex is up. Of course he is. He’s been lying awake also. We throw everything in the car and head over to the boat dock at the mouth of the Deschutes to meet up with our guide, Jeff Hickman, from Larimer Outfitters. I had been reading a lot about him and his mad skills and was hoping to glean some of his experience. Alex and I only get a chance to go on a guided trip once a year, or maybe twice if we are lucky, so we always look forward to them.
The boat ride up the river was insane. I have come down rivers on drift boats a few times, but to shoot up the mighty Deschutes with her millions of hidden boulders and huge rapids was something else.
We finally stopped at a beautiful spot and got the spey primer from Jeff. Little did I know how much I actually sucked at spey casting. Almost everything I thought I was doing right ended up being wrong. Jeff showed me why I was only really fishing for maybe 20% of my float. And the worst part is that old habits are the hardest to break.
He did manage to get our drifts into good enough shape with the floating line that I got a strong bump from a steelhead. Just a few seconds later Alex got one on the line just above me. Jeff really wanted us to have a double, but my fish just would not come back for another take. Alex’s fish came off after a roll, so Jeff took him down river and put a skater on. On one of his first casts a fish came up and slammed at the fly. It slammed that fly five times before it committed and Alex had a really nice hatchery fish on.
I had a few more bumps and Alex did also, but the day started to slow. We tried a few more spots up the river, but nothing. The clouds broke up and the sun came out, so we stopped to have grilled brats, ceasar salad and potato salad. Delicious! I even downed a Total Domination IPA to try and smooth out my cast, which by this point had gone to hell. The skagit head with the sink tip is not my friend.
We kept on fishing through the afternoon and all of us were getting tired of not finding any fish. The wind picked up and the sink tip seemed to be getting harder to throw with every cast. I was getting really annoyed with myself. Then Jeff took the rod from my hand and told me “Calm down. Look around you. Look where you are. Look at those birds gliding around the cliffs. Look at the light on the water.” When I regained some calmness he handed me back the rod. I tried to just relax (which can be really hard for me) and put all the spey casting pieces together. After another ten minuets of casting I got a nice 7 or 8 pounder on the line. The fish however came in with absolutley no fight until it was right next to me. Then it decided to go between my legs and roll like crazy. Needless to say it came off. Damn.
I cast back into the same bucket for another ten or fifteen minutes trying to remain calm. And Wohhoooo!!! I found a fighter! Jeff let out a mighty howl that echoed off the canyon walls. The line was screaming off the reel. I was trying to spot the fish way down the river where my line was and then saw a jump in the middle of the river up from me. “Reel!!! Reel!!” I heard Jeff yell at me. “Faster!”After what seemed like an eternity I got the fish close enough for Jeff to grab it. And there it was, my first steelhead to hand.
The release.
This is what happens when you are reeling at warp speed.
