Returning to an old, favorite steelhead stream

A nice steelhead for the Old Man. One is enough for me these days.

 

Decades ago, there was a place on the Little Manistee River that was almost like home. It had many shallow gravel bars where steelhead spawned, and rather than charging off elsewhere, my son David and I chose to returned to my hotspot from the late 1960s.

"If that's where you want to fish," I'm happy to tag along. "Show me a place you haven't showed me before." He and I had fished a good many spots but there were a bunch he had yet to see.

So I did, and it was like going back in time. And he fell in love with it just as I did 45 years ago. No, sorry, but I'm not revealing its exact location although I can get you fairly close.

Taking a big step back in time brought us to the Little Manistee River.

 

The river, between the 9 Mile and 6 Mile bridge, was running low, fast and clear that day as we stepped into the river. Strongly felt was the old familiar tightening of water pressure against my legs as we began wading slowly upstream in hopes of finding a leftover steelhead or two.

We poked along slowly, easing into the current, checking out gravel bars for the dish-shaped white overturned gravel from the fanning of a hen steelhead's tail. The bed is slightly upstream from the white gravel at the tail-end of the bed. Some people wonder why these beds are white, and the quick and easy answer is this gravel has been turned over as a hen digs her spawning redd.

David, much younger than the old man, has speed to burn. I nodded for him to charge off in his personal quest for a lively steelhead while I walked slowly, stopped often, and looked for the near-invisible shadow of a fresh hen or the darker and blockier shape of a male.

I covered 200 yards, and stood motionless, looking near a fallen log that had toppled into the river. My vision, at best, is poor but I know what to look for and quickly found it.

First came the dark shadowy shape of a male holding in slightly deeper water along the edge of the redd. The water was four feet deep here, and I studied it for 10 minutes. The trick is to locate both fish before starting to cast to them.

I just fish for male steelhead. Hooking a female can ruin the fishing.

 

Make a mistake at this point, and hook the female, and she is gone and the males will vanish with her. I studied the bed, both sides of it, and finally found her holding next to a log 10 feet downstream from the redd. The female was bright silver in the sunshine, and she was very close to being invisible. At first I couldn't see her, but then I spotted her shadow, and then she became instantly visible. It's a matter of knowing what to look for, and any skill at spotting these fish comes from many years of experience.

She was in an impossible spot to fish, even if I was stupid enough to try for her. The male held alongside the redd, and in a perfect location. My line was lengthened, and reading the current speed and depth gave me the ideal spot to cast. My orange yarn fly drifted downstream along bottom, and the fish moved away from it.

The fly was lifted out, cast again, and again the male moved aside and allowed the fly to drift past. Time after time I cast, and each time the male slid away, but he was becoming agitated, and on the 20th or 30th cast, he grabbed the fly and the hook was pounded home.

That fish ripped off on a downstream run, ran past the hen, went between two fallen logs, and wheeled in midstream, splashed out of the water in a corkscrewing jump, and ran back upstream. He took 10 yards of line upstream from me, rolled on the surface, and headed back down and turned. He bulldozed into a submerged brush pile in front of me, and in less than a second tangled my line and broke off.

I moved back up to shore, sat down, tied on another orange yarn fly, and rested the spot. It took 30 minutes before the hen moved back into her holding position, and 15 minutes later, the male reappeared. This time there was something different: an orange yarn fly was firmly embedded in the corner of his mouth.

Hooking and losing a nice buck steelhead was exciting.

 

It took at least an hour for both fish to settle down, and I admired the day and the scenic beauty of this portion of the river. It seemed a great day to be alive. Upstream, I heard David talking to himself as a fish splashed. He was into a steelhead, and was telling the world about it.

My male with the lip decoration lay beside the female, and she let loose a jet of yellow eggs as both fish rolled on their sides, mouth agape, and he fertilized the eggs. I got a good look at the hen, and she was flat-bellied and had successfully spawned.

She headed into a log jam and disappeared from sight. She would now rest, and I had no problem casting again to the solitary male. This time he was more eager, and grabbed the orange fly on the second drift but he'd learned his previous lesson well. He darted into the brush, twisted around, and the hook pulled free.

Minutes later David came back downstream. He had landed a nice male and released it, and said he had covered over a mile of river and saw just those two fish.

Was it a perfect day? The weather was wonderful though a bit windy, and we each found a male fish to cast to. David hooked and landed his and released the big 12-pound buck, and I hooked and lost the same fish twice. Did  we have a good time?

The answer was an emphatic "yes!" We fished several other areas that day, and never saw another steelhead. But, finding two males and hooking both of them, was just part of a perfect day. Fishing a spot I hadn't fished in 30 years was a bonus, and it was nice to know that fish still hold in the same locations as they did more than 40 years ago.

David will soon be in Alaska running his fishing boat, and I'm here and lacking company. Perhaps I'll return to that spot, but it's more likely I'll try another spot I haven't fished in years. Going it alone doesn't bother me, and sometimes I count myself lucky to still be able to fish for steelhead.

I'll soon be 72 years old, but fly fishing is much like shooting pool. Once you learn how, it only takes a bit of practice to become proficient. I'll never be as good at this type of fishing I was 40 years ago, but that's just fine. One fish is enough to make me fall in love with steelhead all over again.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors