Zzz

all the rivers are packed with fishermen at this moment...lures, jigs and baits... but only few got them...luckily, i found some fly eating fish. Zzz them up...good time!
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quote from Riveraddict - speypages
...over the past years on this board about bobber fishing for steehead. In my opinion, yes it is a "legitimate" method of flyfishing, especially for those folks that happen to live in areas where conditions/circumstances make swinging a super-low or impossible odds game. However, I would also like to point out that traditionally speaking, catching steelhead on a fly has never engendered the reputation of being "easy". It has only been in recent times that modern media seems to have acquired the purpose of "hyping" steelheading - today's angling articles say "look at how cool it is to catch these HUGE fish on a fly" -along with plenty of "in your face" photos that promote BIG fish. Unfortunately, in the melee to expose steelheading to the general angling masses a few "facts" seem to have been forgotten...
- swinging flies for steelhead isn't "easy". The very difficulty of the game is exactly why it is considered to be one of the pinnacles of our sport. It is the difficult aspects of swinging flies for steelhead that provides the degree of importance and meaning to its rewards - the casts made, the water covered, the knowledge learned, the time spent -these are the challenges. But that condition - "not easy" - doesn't mesh well with today's prevailing attitudes of "I want it NOW". So, what can we do to catch more fish, quicker, and with less effort on the angler's behalf? In the end, whatever means are instituted, it doesn't really matter. You've "caught your fish", got your picture, have established your claim - "I've caught a steelhead on a fly". But it's a real basic, almost superficial accomplishment - minimal personal investment in time, effort, and skill, results in a correlating depth and degree of reward. It's like making a slam-dunk on the garage basketball hoop that's 4' lower than regulation. Or, getting to the top of a mountain by helicopter - sure you've accomplished the act, but it ain't the same.
- defining a "steelhead". What makes a steelhead a steelhead? To the "average Joe" on the street that even has an inkling of the term "steelhead", it is a rainbow trout that migrates to the ocean. In other words, to most people, along with most anglers - plunkers, gearchuckers, bobbering flyfishers - the steelhead is just another fish. Sure, it might garner a little higher regard than some other species because it is a type of trout, or it looks prettier, or it "tastes better", fights harder... But, to a flyangler that swings for steelhead, the word "steelhead" means much, much more. This is a fish, one that grows large, that fights hard, that is pleasing to look at, that is fished for in beautiful environs, that spends a major portion of its life out of reach in the mysteries of the ocean, that then returns to rivers, with no need to feed - in other words has no requirement to do ANYTHING other than return to its spawning grounds - YET, can be enticed to intercept, chase, TAKE, MOVE TO, an object crafted by hand of feathers, fur, tinsel, and steel - an object that has no "triggering scent", no buzzing, rattling, spinning, flashing, diving, wiggling, wagging, action of its own - an object that's characteristics for attraction are created solely by the angler through personal calculation of casting angle and manipulation of the line as it interacts with the current! This, my angling friends, is nothing short of a friggen' MIRACLE, and to fly swinging steelheaders, each steelhead brought to the swungfly is viewed with an incredible amount of amazement, respect, and wonder! And, because of all the personal investment put into each fish, along with the incredible seeming impossibility of the situation, there is no group of people that hold the steelhead in higher regard.
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Riveraddict