I finally busted out of the ice box known as Hood River on Presidents day. With a familiar crew and somewhat low expectations we headed off to the Sandy to swing some flies. We found the Sandy low(1700cfs) cold and clear, my favorite. The forecast was for 28 degrees until mid morning so we were glad to be met with temperatures above freezing. After a quick check in with one of my favorite guides we headed off. I let my guys know probability of getting a fish was pretty low so DO NOT trout set if you get pulled. Our first stop was a bust. Moving on we started to run into some walk in traffic but I still had hope to get one of my favorite spots. Sure enough our spot was open. My clients immediately start pointing at all the footprints, and there were a lot of them. There were several anglers above us but I decided we were going to fish it anyway. We made a quick fly change and off to work we went. As I’m bouncing between my guys I see Joe’s rod come tight, no response from Joe dead still. A couple seconds go by and his rod starts bucking and I knew we struck pay dirt. We ended up landing a nice wild 5-6 pound buck. Moral of the story, there are two. Don’t worry about some footprints and leave your rod down!
So the report is this; we fished three runs clean and hooked one fish, a solid day. We fished until dark and never got another pull, still pretty slow. The good news! on our float down the river we jumped a nice little pod of mint bright steelhead that scattered in every direction My hope is that we get some more water in the river and the fish staged down low can move up…Ill be waiting.
Side note; I couldn’t help but notice at the the blue winged olives coming off mid day, we even saw some of the big winter stones. Now that the roads are clear it’s time to head over to the Deschutes to fish some dry flies but remember not on a sunny day and not on a windy day.
Tight lines.
Sam Sickles
(541) 400-0855
www.steelheadoutfitters.com
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