North Fork Nehalem

Alex and I went out to the North Fork of the Nehalem on Sunday for a quick three hour check-up on the river. The water had been dropping and when we saw the amount of trucks parked at the hatchery we figured we had made a good guess on the right day to be there. We went into the beautiful part of the river above the hatchery. The water was the right shade and dropping and you could spot several steelhead. I went to check one of the shallow spots where I had seen fish before and saw beauty of a steelie. One cast and the fish slipped into the quick current right next to where I saw him. Alex came over and spotted him under all the whitewater and we both fished to him for awhile with no luck. We moved farther up the river and tried a few other good sections. There were some guys below the bridge throwing hardware at two steelhead with no luck either. When we headed back down the river I thought I would check my shallow spot one more time just for the hell of it. As I slowly made my way up the rapids towards the shallow pool that the steelhead was in I paid no attention to the other smaller pools all around me. And just as I was one pool away from the one the fish is usually in I looked down as I was making a step and almost put my foot down on a beautiful large steelhead. I saw it and it saw me and we were both startled by each other and then he was gone. I just sat down on a rock for a few minuets. After all my time fly fishing you think I would realize that you can’t expect a fish to be where you think it should be. While, that and you should just be open to anything. That is what makes our hobby/passion so fun.