First Taste of Steel

Remember your First Steelhead?
A note from the Seabeckhodders


        My Dad asked, "Why is your line going upstream?"  As I snapped out of my day dream, as any 13 year old is prone to do (even while standing in a river with a fishing pole in hand!) and looked out at my line, as it slowed prodded upriver!  I reeled out the slack on my Mitchell 320 until the rod had a peculiar pulsing sensation to it, then I set the hook.

        Yea, my first steelhead was a Wenatchee River summer run (a five pound hen) that picked up my plain 'ol Oakie Drifter and starting swimming upstream with it!  I remember it like it was last week, even though that was in October of 1971!

The Bogachiel River

        The owner of this blog, my oldest son Charlie, was 12, when he caught his first steelie on the Clackamas River in Oregon in December of 1996.  My other son is 19 year old Ben.  You can count the number of times he has been steelheading on one hand during his teen years, until this winter.  I think the 3rd trip this winter was a recent trip to the Bogachiel River on March 23rd, 2012.

        We just went under the Goodman-Mainline bridge in my 14' Clackacraft, avoiding the plunkers on the north side of the river.  We let out the Hotshots and back trolled the plugs along the south bank for a couple hundred yards.  The drift started to "tail out" as we moved out into the middle.  I reached for my rod to start reeling in and Ben did the same, except when he picked up his rod, his rod fought back!  I asked, "Do you got one on?!?"  About then, he struggled to get the word "Yes" out with a doubled rod and a large steelhead boiling downstream!  My squirrely little drift boat did a couple of pirouettes as I reeled in and then I grabbed the oars and pumped us into the shallows of the north bank.  A few minutes later, I slid the net under Ben's first steelhead.  A dandy native buck, 17-1/4 lb and 37" long!  You are allowed one native per fishing license calendar year on some of these coastal rivers and this one was a perfect fish to keep, with no regrets!

Bennie's Buck

        I am pretty sure about 30 years from now, Ben will remember his first steelie like it was last week, too!

Seabeckhodders