Just got home last night from a three day float from Pine Tree to the Mouth. Steelhead season is in full swing from Maupin down to the Columbia. We timed our float to avoid the jet boat traffic and it really payed off. There was lots of floater traffic, but many of them were rafters and it seemed like only half of the boats we saw even had fishing rods in them. We got to fish almost all of the water we wanted to with very little competition. The catching? It was slow, but we did hook multiple steelhead every day of the float. Talking with other fisherman, it sounded like we did pretty well by comparison. I think we ended up hooking about a dozen fish and landing seven of them. The fish are not being overly aggressive to the fly. Many of the grabs were very soft. I had a hard time getting fish on the dry line/hairwing fly setup. Most of my takes were during the day, swinging leeches on sinktips. The fish, however, were incredible and worth the effort. All but one of the fish we landed were wild fish. The average size was quite a bit bigger than usual and these fish were hot! Cartwheeling jumps and line ripping runs were the norm. Can't wait to do it again!
