TR: Monster Steelhead

My son Andy always seems to catch the biggest fish. He's also a
fearless wader. Imagine someone who wades like Warren, but is 6 foot 3
inches tall.

Thursday on the Hoh had been going my way nicely. I hooked 5
steelhead, landed 3 of them clean, kept one hatchery fish, and had a 15
pound fish on long enough to get him up to the rocks twice, but I just
couldn't get a grip on him. He threw the hook after the tecond attempt
to land him. All this while, Andy had a few strikes, but hadn't hooked
up with any, but then it all changed.

We were at the last good hole above the takeout, and I'd worked through
it without a strike. Andy moved in for a few casts, and hooked a beast.
The fish took off down stream past a log jam, so he handed the rod up
to me on the log jam and ran around to take it from me on the other
side. In the process the fish managed to catch the line on a big
spruce tree that was lying in the water. The fish was still on, so
Andy waded out with the rod to pull the line off. The water was deeper
than the top of his waders, so he shipped some water, but floated a bit
and managed to get the line loose. The fish moved downstream, Andy
managed to stay upright and swim back to shore with the rod up and the
fish ripping line out downstream. Once on shore he took off after the
fish and had to cross to an island to get around another log jam.
About 15 minutes later and 300 yards downstream he got the fish onto
the rocks and held it up for me to photograph. I've posted the picture
to ABPF. It's not one of my clearer pictures, but I was across the
river, unwilling to attempt the crossing, so I used the 200mm zoom and
had to shoot at 1/40 second. This is the best shot of 10.

Chas
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http://home.comcast.net/~chas.wade/w...ome.html-.html
San Juan Pictures at:
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