Having entered
the river during summer, it melted into
the subtle hues of the rocky glacial river to sit out the
dog days, then survived an onslaught of four fall
salmon species to welcome it's brethren through
the winter. He
spawned
successfully in early spring and headed back from the
headwaters toward the sea. By
this time most anglers are awaiting the run of
spring natives. I caught wind of a rumor spread by the
hardcores telling of a ferocious fish in the "potty
hole" on my home river. These guys had been spanked by a nasty fish,
readily hooked but breaking tippets or leaping to freedom after a hellacious fight. They
dubbed it "the
steelhead from hell". I had to meet this fish.
Using my lightest sink tip on a hybrid line system, I swung a
"purple magic" fly over the teeth of a volcanic rock
outcropping that breaks the current to form a promising hole
lined with smoothly polished gravel in it's hollowed wake.
It looked right, the mosaic of stones under the crisp mountain
flow of the river's currents weaving patterns as if something
serious lay in it's midst. As I held the rod in tension to
swim the fly, it slowly swam toward the inner current seam
closest to the shore, suspended in the curtain of forces between
the water held captive by the eddy and the chute rushing
hurriedly toward the eternal cycle of stream and
sea.
Juro
Mukai
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Suddenly, my arm was wrenched out of socket by
a fish that was in the air as soon as it was on, clearing nearly
a grown man's height from the water over and over again,
screaming the drag with such ferocity that the flyline friction
burned clean through a pair of fancy neoprene gloves I had
gotten for Christmas just a few weeks prior.
After eight or
nine tooth-grinding leaps and many blistering runs I took the
above photo for bragging rights and let him go. With a
hard tail slap, he disappeared into the legend from where he
came.
The advent of two-handed rods
changed all the rules for winter run flyfishing for steelhead -
along with the thicker neoprene waders and polypropylene
sportwear. It's a year-round venture in temperate
areas like the pacific northwest.
Through
the many winter weekends when I fished for steelhead, I'd look at
the cleanly sheared cut in my middle glove finger and think
fondly of the steelhead from hell. That thought and and a
flask of single malt whiskey would warm me through many miles
of February riverbank over the years to follow.
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