Wednesday, November 7

I had some fun steelhead fishing late last week.

My first trip was with my fishing buddy Rollie Schmitten, off the mouth of the Entiat River on the Columbia.

We had just a couple of hours and we had some success here last year. The bar in this area changes every year, but Schmitten found an area where the fish were holding and we took advantage of a brief bite.

I landed a nice hatchery fish and he lost one right at the boat.

We missed a couple of other strikes on our Maxi-jigs and saw one caught from shore.

The fish we landed kept our steelhead success streak alive into the third season!

On Saturday I was invited to jump on board with Shane Magnuson, Upper Columbia Guide Service. He had the McCourties, a father and eight-year-old son and his old friend Garrett Graham along and had room for me.

We fished the area known as The Rocks down stream from the mouth of the Methow.

We were pretty busy, too. Both McCourties landed their first steelhead ever and we had a blast watching young Christian strain to pull the fish to the boat.

His dad Anton not only caught some nice steelhead but a big smallmouth bass on a bobber and jig!

Friday, November 9

I had a great day of steelhead fishing earlier this week, when Rollie Schmitten, Jim Passage and I took Barb's Boat out for another adventure.

We wanted to give fishing off the mouth of the Entiat another try, and then do some exploring.

Fishing wasn't a good at our spot at the edge of the bar in the Columbia at Entiat as it was on our last trip.

Neither Passage nor I got a hit, but Schmitten scored big time.

He hooked what we thought was a king for a while, as the fish seen at a distance was so big and was showing a lot of red color.

When we got it to the boat, though, it was certainly a steelhead and a big one.

We estimated its weight at between 15 and 17 pounds before we released it. We then put the boat in at Chelan Falls. We tried drifting bobbers off the outlet of the hatchery above the bridge, but found a couple of fish near the bridge pillars.

Both Passage and I caught and released steelhead in this spot.

We tried some other spots in this area without success, but ended the day with eight good bites and three to the boat.

Monday, November 12

I just got some good news for steelhead anglers in the region.

I had mentioned that the season may close early in November, but I just got word from Jeff Korth, Regional Fish Manager with the Department of Fish and Wildlife office in Ephrata, that the season will run at least through Thanksgiving weekend.

The department will evaluate where we are at the end of the month and determine whether or not to close the steelhead season and reopen it sometime after the first of the year, maybe as late as mid-February.

It will all depend on the number of wild fish "encounters" anglers have reported.

It is important that anglers report fish that were "in hand" when released, and not "long line" releases.

There are very strong numbers of wild fish returning to most of our streams, which increases the number of encounters and accelerates reaching the mortality threshold.

This leads to the closure of steelhead fishing.

The cold weather that is forecast for the next week or so should help drop area rivers into better fishing shape.

The rivers are running clear, but high for this time of year.

Cold water in the tributaries pushes fish out into the main stem Columbia and really improves the fishing on the "big water."