Hi Cris,
Bob contacted me and asked me to write an article for the Irideus about my recent trip on the Rogue. Ive included a photo attached to this email, if you'd like a higher res version or any others you can find them here
Thanks
Lee
======start======
There it was again, that tiny bright orange balloon, half-filled each with water and air. It bounced tauntingly off the end of the 10' 7wt, pre-rigged with a 18ft 3x tapered leader and three droppers, as he handed the rod my way. In my mind I knew this was going to be a great day. Cold as heck, but a great day.
We would be fishing for Steelhead on the Rogue River around Shady Cove, Oregon, in late November. I had been prepped in advance... "it will be cold... and it might rain" he said. "Remember, there's no such thing as bad weather" to which he added "only bad rain gear". Steve had called about ten days prior to confirm. I was definitely still in. I started fly-fishing this past Spring and this was my first big fishing trip. I was determined to catch some Steelhead, snow or shine. Gladly it didn't rain, and being well dressed for the occasion I mostly forgot the cold. Either way, I was still excited. I'd never hired a guide before. After Steve Walser's presentation, "West Slope Fishing Opportunities", I was extremely impressed and suddenly felt convinced I needed to hire a guide... an extremely knowledgeable guide that could teach me what I needed to know. So I booked a trip, or two. After all, it's Christmas.
Which brings me to the fish, and they were definitely biting that weekend. In fact, I caught more fish that weekend than on all of my other trips combined. Now, understand on any of those other trips, many of these fish would have been of a nice size for those rivers. Only thing is, here, Steve had them off the hook and back in the water before I even had a hand on my camera, "Not what we're after" he'd say. "But, but, but... my fish", I thought to myself as each one swam away. Then, I hooked one. I thought it was a rock until it started running towards me. Overall I hooked at least four good Steelhead on that trip; went at least three rounds with two of them, and after another good fight landed the one you see here. My first real fish, apparently.
I've always been inclined to not believe those 'one that got away' stories. But now that it's happened to me, I'm a believer. We fought what we thought might have been a Coho for a good twenty minutes before we finally got a glimpse of the even larger Steelhead hooked on that last size 16 dropper, maybe eight or nine pounds of fish. Another ten minutes went by in the fight. That fish jumped in and out of the water three times and I held on. Steve- in competition with the fish-had been in and out of the boat twice as well, helping me work that fish closer. That fish had worked us into a tie game and knew it. A third jump and run would put him sideways in the rapids, we saw it coming, and he went for it. It was there, sideways and rolled in the line, he was able to work that now somewhat bent bug out of his lip and bolt off downstream. I thought for a moment that Steve was going to chase down the river after it. Instead he returned to the boat as upset and excited as I was, and we rested for a moment while going over that sad but glorious encounter we just experienced. Im definitely doing this again
=====end=======
