May Steelheading and Heading South

Nothing like sunshine and chrome summers

Spent the last couple of days exploring a couple of little summer steelhead rivers south of Seattle. It was good to get out and swing flies again, and I've got to say I'm a little sad I'll miss the annual June opener on the locals this year. While fishing this time of year is far from predictable, the fish are fresh, aggressive and generally on the move. All this comes together to make for streaky fishing with nothing going on one day and multiple hookups the next. The summer field season though will have me traveling to NorCal for the summer at the end of May meaning I will miss what has become the most productive time of the year on the local puget sound rivers. With 16 hours of daylight it can get to be a grind fishing all day, but after a fishless May I'm always ready to push myself a little, especially when there are bright fish to be had. Soon it will be dryline season properly. No more chucking lead eyes and t14 on skagit heads, for the next 5 months I wont pick up anything but a delta and I hope to be fishing the floating line most of the time. While I will miss the locals there is plenty of exploring to be done to the south and I have the rest of my life to fish and enjoy the rivers of the Puget Sound area. Take good care of them while I'm gone...

Now its off to the southern hinterlands of Klamath country. I'm looking forward to getting a little taste of the area and exploring what was arguably one of the most productive salmon ecosystems in the world before European Americans did their dam/mining/irrigation/logging/hatchery thing. I understand there are still a few fish around...we'll see what I find.