10-25-2011, 02:55 AM
Finally made it up to the Clearwater with my brother in law and some friends this weekend. It's been 5 years since I went last and boy have they refined the method! Saturday was a little dreary on weather but not bad. Pretty quickly hooked up on a steelie and then lost it at the boat just as we were about to scoop it into the net. I believe we decided it was a native anyway so a perfect release. We ended up bouncing around downstream of Orofino quite a way (not certain how far down we ended up) but we did fair. Boated 12 steelhead, whacked 6 of them and the rest were released. We figure we lost easily 6 or 7 on top of that plus a dozen or so whitefish, a sucker, a chisel mouth, and a trout plus a jack chinook. Overall a productive day, but not up to the standards they were getting a couple weeks ago before catch and keep opened up. Oh, and all of the steelhead were B-runs!
Day two was a little cooler, but less drizzle. Had a couple sprinkles then it warmed up nicely. We put in at Lorain and motored upstream a little ways. First drift and I hook up! After a little battle netted a nice steelie but it was a native so quickly back in the drink. Second drift through the same hole and almost immediately hook up again. I landed it and another native, back in the drink. At this point I'm getting the lecture to stop hooking "whitefish" and focus. We hit the hole a couple more times and another guy briefly hooked up and lost it. We then moved upstream a little but the hole we wanted to drift had about 6 boats in it so we went downstream instead. Action slowed for a little but we still managed to hook up every 30 minutes or so. At one point we drifted through a hole, hooked up one of us, second drift we hooked up 3 of us! Unfortunately only was able to boat one. A native A-run, the only A-run of the trip. We landed another native out of that hole before moving on. We finished up just down from the put in and hooked up almost every drift. We landed 2 steelhead, a white fish and a big chinook that was realeased. Day total was 11 steelhead boated, 3 jack chinook, 2 adult chinook, numerous whitefish and a sucker or two. Oh, and we were done at 1 pm. Only kept the two fish that day. All the other steelhead were natives.
Overall a great time! Have several pics. The second to last one is one of the chinook landed. The other underwater pic is of a steelhead lost on it's 3rd run from the boat. We felt better after we saw the pic and it clearly shows an unclipped fin. All taken w/ the gopro, so that's where the underwater ones come from. Also got some incredible video, including underwater, of those big fish coming in, rolling then taking off on a run. Truly impressive to see. Just haven't gotten around to uploading video yet. If I do I'll post a link to it.
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Day two was a little cooler, but less drizzle. Had a couple sprinkles then it warmed up nicely. We put in at Lorain and motored upstream a little ways. First drift and I hook up! After a little battle netted a nice steelie but it was a native so quickly back in the drink. Second drift through the same hole and almost immediately hook up again. I landed it and another native, back in the drink. At this point I'm getting the lecture to stop hooking "whitefish" and focus. We hit the hole a couple more times and another guy briefly hooked up and lost it. We then moved upstream a little but the hole we wanted to drift had about 6 boats in it so we went downstream instead. Action slowed for a little but we still managed to hook up every 30 minutes or so. At one point we drifted through a hole, hooked up one of us, second drift we hooked up 3 of us! Unfortunately only was able to boat one. A native A-run, the only A-run of the trip. We landed another native out of that hole before moving on. We finished up just down from the put in and hooked up almost every drift. We landed 2 steelhead, a white fish and a big chinook that was realeased. Day total was 11 steelhead boated, 3 jack chinook, 2 adult chinook, numerous whitefish and a sucker or two. Oh, and we were done at 1 pm. Only kept the two fish that day. All the other steelhead were natives.
Overall a great time! Have several pics. The second to last one is one of the chinook landed. The other underwater pic is of a steelhead lost on it's 3rd run from the boat. We felt better after we saw the pic and it clearly shows an unclipped fin. All taken w/ the gopro, so that's where the underwater ones come from. Also got some incredible video, including underwater, of those big fish coming in, rolling then taking off on a run. Truly impressive to see. Just haven't gotten around to uploading video yet. If I do I'll post a link to it.
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