Picked up the phone around 4PM yesterday, knowing full well the gist of what I was about to hear. It was T-bone on the other side, and he and Heavy D had been out a couple hours on a local stream. T-bone said, and I quote, "Let the Chromage Begin!!!" Wow...begin indeed, complete with a douchy catch phrase and a shit eating grin. All kidding aside though, its always nice to do our part removing the inferior, hatchery drones they call steelhead from our local streams. Somehow a 6 lb chambers creek fish with no dorsal fin can never stack up to a chrome fish double its size with infinitely more soul. Still, the prospect of feeling a steelheads yank after a month of highwater was enough to have The Heavy and myself back out today at a super secret spot in Pugetropolis. Over the years the spot has been pretty good to us despite the river's general tendency to be devoid of fish, so we thought we'd giver a look.
Weather was heinous, with snow over night, turning to slush, then turning to rain and a thin crust of ice at the rivers edge from a week of subfreezing temps. Still, the water was warmer than it'd been in a while so we figured any fish that were around should be snappy. Had one big yank in some ridiculously froggy water where fish will sit when they're feeling lazy. One spot up there I've never got a fish from but I've been watching it over the years and it seems to be getting fishier. With the low, cold water the structure and speed were perfect and I hooked a bright fish on the red and purple GP, sucker came unpinned after a few rolls and headshakes but at least it was a fish. Things are looking up around here or as TBone might say, "Let the Chromage Begin!!!!"
