Fishing Forum

My wife an I decided to do the steelhead fishing trip this past weekend and I wanted to share our experience.

we have regular spin gear tackle, nothing fancy and we loaded up on lead weight, swivels, corkies, yarn, number two hooks and 12lb leader to allow us to drift fish. our fishing rods are 6ft and not the typical setup i read about here on this forum.

Our knowledge is from reading this great forum, advice from coworkers, and youtube to learn the egg knot...

friday morning at 930am the first spot we fished before shoup we snagged up right away on first few casts...crap donated tackle to the river! not as easy as we thought, not to mentiont the rocky cliff climb up and down the bank was rough too....we went out to ram's head...lots of people here all closely parked together and fishing...no bites...by 4pm we had already passed owl creek in an area called evinishere(spelling?) I landed a nice male 26"....missed another when I felt the bite i was too late to set the hook....the fish I landed brought me more company to the bank and then my sycronized casting with neighbors was kinda diffiicult at first....so we called it a day....next morning same spot I landed a sucker and another miss on two more bites...my rod setup probably a major factor but even those around me werent landing much at all....colder and windier we called it a day by 11am drifting by the first bridge out where pavement area ends...
My initital thoughts were,,wow so many peeps with campers out there...I think its great that portapotys are setup every couple miles....I wish my wife would have landed one...she tried so hard and she was a great trooper...steelheading requires patience for sure...we enjoyed driving to different holes and seeing wildlife along the way...If we would have just stuck it out in one spot maybe we would have learned the bounce of a drift and landed more...but we wanted to sight see and learn about the fishing holes we hear about at work...
Maybe next time we will have proper rod to feel the bite better and head out with and experienced steelhead diehard...

Sharing pic of the steelhead and wanted to thank everyone here for posting tips and enabling me to catch my first metal head on the salmon...sorry for misspelling any names.....For my own privacy I cropped out my mug...

Match and Sol
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good job. Its a tough sport and tell your wife be patient and it will happen one day. Take her up again in the next month and she will get one. A 6 ft rod will work it just won't launch like a longer one . I went up thurs. till saturday night We stayed above the north fork. thursday fished 11 till dark between 3 of us we landed 13. Fri morning hit shoupe area before light and fished till around 11no hits and we never saw anyone hookup. I'd say about from daylight till 11 there had to have been 300 + vehicles drive past us so we took a drive to dutch oven to see the combat fish fishing. Doesn't even look fun. so we headed back up and finished the afternoon with 3 more Saturday ! landed a couple hookups cold windy. Don't worry about the rods I've been using a 6 1/2 ft. the last 10 years and its been working. I'm probably going to have my brother build me one.I was going to try FF saturday but a bit to windy and the bite was not there.Maybe I'll meet you If flygoddess comes up next weekend I'll probably be with them when you guys hook up. I met a fellow BFT'er Sloppy Joe. It was good meeting ya. Had him come and fish with us for a while

Here's my first catch of the day
[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 003.JPG"]




[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 005.JPG"]

Herb with a happy face[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 025.JPG"]
Herb trying to have a talk [inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 041.JPG"]
Joe with a bent rod and it caught air and snapped his line
[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 048.JPG"]

Sun dropped over the hill[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 056.JPG"]


WOW look what Herb found on the end of the line[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 073.JPG"]

Break time.[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 099.JPG"]

2 happy campers [inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 103.JPG"]
Getting dark and chilly.[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 114.JPG"]

Roger with another[inline "Steelheading salmon idaho 3-2010 117.JPG"]
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good report guys and match consider your self lucky you caught one on your first trip. i have buddys that have been fishing for steelhead for 2 years and havnt landed a fish.
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It was a good first experience for sure....Landing one was great but will be better prepared next time as we get out there more....

Poky, looks like you guys did great....hopefully some day my slow days will be 3 steelies....Cant wait to meet you all and join FG as well...


Match and Sol
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Congratulations!!! First time out and you bring home the prize!!! Way to go!!! I went out 4 times before I brought one home. You are very right about all the help someone can get from this forum. That is how and why I finally brought home one of those elusive chromers. L_P_R
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Great Report. I still haven't caught a steelhead, in fact I wiped it from my bucketlist of fish after fishing for them a ton in high school and never getting one. Now my life gets busy at this time of year so I may not get one for a while.

By the way are you on the witness protection list? J/K[cool]

Windriver
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You are hooked now. I should have never caught the first one 17 year ago. Tell your wife it took me 5 years to hook the second one. Once it get in your blood it is hard to quit. Condration. Don
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Good job. We are rookies to this steelhead fishing as well. My Dad, my buddy and I headed up there Friday morning at 3 am. This was only my third time steelhead fishing and I haven't ever been below Salmon so we didn't know where to go. We started heading towards Shoup and couldn't believe all the people and campers parked all along that road. We headed down past Ramshead a couple of miles and started fishing. After a few hours without a single bite we decided to go exploring, we headed back up towards Rams head and found a gap in the crowds and decided to give it a try. After a few more hours of nothing the sun finally decided to warm things up a bit and we started to catch some fish. The bite lasted for a few hours and I ended up landing 6 my buddy landed 3 and my dad landed his first steelhead. We had a blast and even though we didn't land 30 fish each like they say they were last week, we felt like we did a pretty good job. There was alot of people we talked to and fished near that never did touch a fish. Saturday we woke up early and got set up in our spot at the Rams head, wind was blowing and rainy and cold not very fun at all. We never got a single bite and headed home around noon. I'll post some pictures when I have a few minutes to get them off the camera.
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when does the run at the shoup area end? how late in the season is it realistic to catch steelies?

Im a little camera shy...not on the wanted list..lol..

Match
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Great report and excellent work on your first try. I am heading up Thursday afternoon until Sunday for my 3rd try. I am hoping the skunk wears off this time. I have no idea where I will be. I am thinking of starting in Challis and working down river. Who knows where I will end up.
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Here is a couple of pictures. And Steelfisher that rod worked really well. I need to figure out the reel a little better though I got a few nasty backlashes.
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Check to see if all the brakes are released and that should prevent backlash. Also you can tighten down the round knob on the side so the weight just slowly goes to the ground when you release the spool. Also practice thumbing the spool lightly during the cast and stop the spool before the weight hits the water.

After you get the hang of it you can loosen things back up for longer casts.

Did you read my post from our last trip? I snagged a bush behind me and had a backlash so bad I couldn't get it untangled. Had to use the backup rod for the rest of the trip.

Sounds like you guys did really good. Glad to hear you broke in the rod on some fish the first trip.

SteelFisher
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i know alot of ppl who carry a crochet hook. to untangle those backlashes also. I get a kick out of watching them just like a bunch of women.
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