North 40 Fly Shop eMagazine October 2015 | Page 13

On Sunday, several guys came into the store
and said they had swung steelhead early that
morning. Joe O’Brien let me borrow his Jet
Sled on Sunday afternoon before my incessant
babbling about the prospects of swinging
steelhead got out of hand. I managed to get
on the water at 5pm. It was bright, dead calm
and 90 degrees. The water temp was up and
the flows were going down. It was not fishy,
but there is always a chance. I took a short run
up to a good looking bucket and watched two
steelhead roll as I tied a skater to my leader.
I was buoyed by hope, imagining the flush
that was about to envelop my skater. Before
I could make a cast to those willing steelhead,
the wind started blowing hard enough to raise
significant waves. Hope ebbed a notch. I cut
off the skater and tied on a wet. My Scandi
head would mostly unroll, but my leader was
landing 15’ upstream of the tip. In short,
fishing conditions were awful. The wind kept