Hit the water with bobber this afternoon. After a being socked in with odd cloudy windy snowy weather for the past four or five days it was good to see the fire ball in the sky. It was beginning to feel like I lived back in Maine.
Side note – Did you know that 10 percent of new englanders get seasonal depression…. FACT

Anyway we thought about trespassing on some ritzy water in town but thought it was a better move to head down valley in search of warmer weather. Driving down HWY 6 we passed the authentic mexican food shack and my stomach rumbled, I was starving. But, having had a bout with some kind of intestinal disagreement about 30 minutes prior I kept my mouth shut. Instead I reached for a 7.5 oz pepsi in the cooler. I heard/saw somewhere that this helps with a stomach ache. FACT – (you be the judge)

The wind was howling it didn’t feel like 39 but thats what the mercury said in the truck. Bullshit, it felt more like 19. I was the first up to bat. I got a tip from magnum the night before that he and atreyu were having luck on big golden stones. I thought that he was lying to me and as I write I still think he may have been. But, since they have been on the water 4 days a week I trusted his call in tied on a giant articulated life like golden stone I bought for .30 cents. Friggin thing was heavy too, my flabby arms could barely roll cast the bastard. Bob was on the bank freezing waiting his turn and on my 61st drift I had a bobber down, yeah I was fishing a bobber please don’t hate. I set the hook and that spongey feeling was there followed by a head shake. I chanted hoping that my 30 cent fly did the trick. Bob hollered did he eat the stone. “yep” i yelled not knowing “nope he ate the tiny thing.” We netted the fish, a nice brown maybe 17 and 5/8 long and released it. Definitely a 6 lb fish by someone standards, I wont name names.

Bob worked his way down stream and saw a suspended fish about a rod length out. My clumsy ass stumbled down the river and spooked the fish further out. “Sorry bob” I mumbled as I perched up on a rock. Out in the middle of the run I could see the fish flash, it was a big fish probably 8 lbs by someone’s standards and as we watched the pink bobber roll past a submerged rock it did the dance. Strebber pinned the fish and we watched it flash and roll. Naturally I started yelling “Don’t horse ‘em” and got into netting position. I scooped up the beautiful Rainbow and gave bob the knuckles. We snapped a few pics, hell it’s not everyday that you see a 10lb fish on the Eagle.

At this point my stomach had eaten my esophagus and it was time to feed the fat kid so we trudged back to the truck and drove back to a little slice of Authentic Mexican goodness. Some may think that 2 beef burritos shouldn’t be the first thing in your stomach after a battle with Montezuma’s revenge, but then again some may say that fish was 10 lbs.

I am headed to the coast in a few days, I might have one more post in me before I leave. Until then keep it sleezy and as always thanks for reading.

How about that title for search?? About 5 years ago my dad and I were in Taylor Creek Fly Shop in Basalt CO. Great fly shop, but you can never get outta there without spending over a c-note. This visit was no different. The old man needed some new boots and I was in need for a boat net. So out the door we went with a pair of boots and a boat net. I like wooden nets some dudes don’t but I think they are classy and any class I can get will surely help. The net that I have had in my boat for the last 5 years has been a Clark Fork Fisknat. Everyone thought it was a nice net but would always say it would break. That kinda pissed me off considering that I liked my new net. Then they would go on about how they have had wooden nets and they all broke. Well I have abused the shit out of this net; thrown it on rocks, banged in on bottom, left it in the sun, rain..etc. And after 5 years of abuse the wood is still solid. The only thing that gave away a bit was the rubber net and this wasn’t a problem the net still landed fish. So as a winter time project I called up Mr, Fisknat and order me a new basket for 25 beans and refinished the wood. Pictured below is the net in its newer form. Looking Sleek.

Here is the net after many years of hard labor.



So if you choose to fix a net like mine I would suggest doing the following:
Make sure you count how many loop connections are on the net, in this case there are 18
Count how many basket loops are on each side of the net, in this case there are 8 on each side and one in the middle on the top and bottom of the net.
Also count how many times the string is wrapped around the net loops, in this case it is wrapped 3 time around the net loop before going back into the wooden handle.
Once I determined the above mentioned I cut off the old basket, took off the electrical tape and sanded down the wooden handle with a hand sander and 100 grit paper. I then took goof off or mineral spirits and wiped the net clean of excess debris.

Next I took Gorilla Glue and filled in some small cracks around the net and let it sit overnight. If you haven’t used this type of glue before don’t be freaked out when you find that it has foamed up around the areas that you glued thats what its supposed to do. The next day I took a utility knife and shaved off all the foam residue left behind from glue. Then I took the goof off and rubbed down the net to clean off excess debris and also loosen left over glue. I did this process a few times and then gave the net a final sand.

The net is now ready for your finish. I used a semi gloss clear coat urethane that I had left over from finishing some wood around the house… hopefully it holds up. I put 6 coats of the product on before attaching the basket. Below is a picture of the net with one coat.

Here is a shot with three coats of finish on the net. Yes Those are boxes of yeti hoodies on my raft. Side note a % of hoody sales will go to the wild steelhead coalition at the end of the year. Buy one and help a steelhead.

I recommend drink beer while applying the clear coat. Especially if you are in a cold garage. I also recommend listening to music otherwise it is a pretty boring process. Once the final coat was dry ( I used a hairdryer to expedite the process) it is time to insert the basket. This is where knowing where to line up the basket loops come in handy. Line your loops up with their corresponding net holes (where the line comes out of the net and wraps around the basket) and tape it to the net (use blue painters tape). This will help hold the basket in place as you thread the line through. Start your threading line at the fork of the net. There are 2 holes pick one to start and you will finish on the hole next to the starting point. This step took me the longest. Make sure you wrap each basket loop at least three times before moving on to the next. This will keep you basket tight to the wooden frame. You will notice that once you finish attaching the basket it might be a little loose got through and take out any slack by tightening the thread. Your last basket loop is the toughest. This loop will be at the fork of your net where you first started. I used a bunch of half hitches to secure the last loop. Here is the final product.


There ya have it. If none of this made sense don’t worry about it. Just go out and buy a net. I wanted a little side project. Hopefully all this work doesn’t result in a broken net… Thanks for reading

Magnum and Steve (Atreyu… was his nick name for the day) picked me up in the jeep with no back window around noon yesterday. The best part about having no back window is that you can throw all your stuff in the back with out the time consuming event of opening a door or in this case a rear window. Very Cool.. This time I made sure I had may wading boots. Last time I got picked up by a 4runner with no side view mirror and no rear lights I left my boots by the front door and spent the day wading in my Muck Boots. Which, worked well but were extremely slippery. There were big plans of driving long distances to secret rivers and catching (not so) giant fish but that was all squashed when we all realized it was already noon. So we headed to a local spot about 30 minutes from the house.

Bobber met us at the rendezvous and the four of us started working our way up river thru the easement. Everything was wide open, no ice, no slush and in the words of Big Zim “it was beautiful.” Magnum was the first to get a bobber down. Steve and I could see him up stream fumbling with a 12 inch whitey that he claimed was a huge brown, but Steve and I knew better. Steve, who I will now refer to as Atreyu, was the second one to see the bobber go beneath the surface and land a healthy Brown. Yours truly finally lost set the hook like Jimmy Houston and loose what could have been the biggest fish in the world…seriously. We noticed that another portion of our party, bobber, was outta sight and nowhere to be seen. We found him up river fishing some lumber with a funky drift. We crossed over and had a little pow wow and began fishing like gentleman. Taking turns in every hole we came to. Now this might seem like an odd practice to you hard core fisherman out there. But, it is quite enjoyable. It works like this, one angler enters the run and begins fishing, the other anglers stand or sit on the bank and heckle the angler fishing. If that angler catches a fish or has taken too much time in the run they simply get out and the rotation begins.


A lot of fish this size were caught and after a ninja hookset the little bastards would swim directly at out. And since we were making drifts in the next county, you had to strip like a mutha to get them under control. Atreyu was battling this but once he got his shit together and landed one the weirdest thing happened. A bright light flashed in the sky and all of a sudden Steve was riding Falcor up river screaming with joy.
After landing his luck dragon Atreyu was back in time to land what he called “the night manager.” When the bobber went down the fish didn’t swim right at me like the others instead it just bull dogged me like a whitey. Then there were the jumps, several. I thought for sure my poor angling skills would lose the night manager but Atreyu and I were able to will him to the net. It wasn’t a giant fish, but he was bigger than the others and put up quite a display. I give you the “Night Manager.”

We ended the day shortly after that. We landed a few more fish and headed back to the Jeep with no window. Fun day on the river, I think Magnum and Atreyu are guiding down there today so hopefully the Texans they picked up at the Westin have figured out how to mend by now. Thanks for reading… Oh before I forget i wanted to give a thanks to bloodknot magazine for putting LLM in their blogger issue. Check it.

When did it start for you? or has it? sometimes I wish that I never caught a steelhead.. not really but there is something about this chrome bastard that continually swims in my noggin. Why couldn’t I have just been happy with catching trout and landlocked salmon. Maybe its the adventurer in all of us that makes us try the unknown. Whatever it is it got a hold of me in the early 2000′s. I had head about this steelhead thing that people were doing down in the great lake tributaries on NY. Shit I knew that water my dad drug me through that piece of water when I was a little dood still shitting my pants..(seriously). Now whether or not you want to call them a steelhead or not the fish we used to chase back east were strong and fun. Anyway, after my first steelhead trip as an adult old enough to drink it soon became apparent that this would now start to consume much of my life. My loving wife can attest. I soon moved from my old hunts in Maine out to Central Colorado where I now pay a mortgage in a place that we can barely afford. But, it is a beautiful place we live in, it is nice to have one stop light in town and see the mountains everyday. I view that I thought I would never take for granted but occasionally do. After moving out here I found that there was a void in my usual fishing habits. I could no longer hop in my truck and make the 8 hour drive on Interstate 90 to my little steelhead world. Which over the years has become an absolute zoo…so I am told. So after researching the internet machine I found that they caught steelhead in WA during the winter months. Now this might sound funny to those of you who grew up on the west coast but being a east coaster I had no idea. Maybe you west coasters didn’t know you could catch mako sharks and blue sharks of the coast of Maine..shhhhh. The only thing that I knew was that they caught these beautiful fish in B.C. but it cost quadruple of my overall worth. I will never forget my first trip to the Olympic Peninsula and I am forever in debt to my west coast steelhead mentor Jeff Brazda. I will also never forgive him for what kind of damage he has done to my tiny fish brain. It was my wife’s school vacation in march. She was looking forward to a nice warm vacation in a sunny destination and I hit here with ” how about this…” “forks! where the hell is forks?” was the reply. None the less we made the trek to what I believe to be one on the most beautiful places I have ever been and she was a trooper. Our first day of fishing with the Braz was a slow day only hooking a couple and nothing to the net. I figured that the way it was and I was not disappointed at all. The following day I was in a boat with a character that goes by the name of Rooster. I had never laughed so hard in my life. In fact there were times when tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t focus. That day I landed my first West Coast Steelhead, in fact I think we hooked about 8 or so and it was marvelous. Since then I have been back too many times to count. In about one month forks will welcome me with a cold Rainier and hopefully good water levels. I look forward to this time every year and until it comes I am often day dreaming and telling people about this magical place. Maybe I shouldn’t. Either way I am a soon to be father and my steelhead days might become numbered but, I will have a new journey to focus on and I am sure it will be wonderful. Hopefully our little boy will get the steelhead bug later in life because he is certainly going to hear about it around the house more than he should. I often wish that in my move out west that I would have kept driving and settled somewhere closer to rivers that get steelhead runs. But, maybe it would loose its luster and I would be wishing I moved to the Keys to chase tarpon. For now I like the thoughts of when I can get to the coast again and test my skills with another bright chrome steelhead.

That fella right there is an East Coast fish. One of the best steelhead fishing trips our “east coast crew” ever had.

This is a pic of Jeff and I on the Lower Hoh River. i think it was february and we were getting sunburned, crazy weather up there.

Thanks for reading my steelhead ramble, some of you might have heard it before but I never get tired of telling it. Best of luck to all you Steelheaders this year, hope to see you on the coast.

Lately I have been digging through the media files trying to close out some end of the year videos that have been long overdue. This past summer was another great one out west with plenty of water and lots of healthy fish. Although I did not get to hold a fly rod much last summer I did however get to watch a lot of anglers enjoy their days on the water. Sometimes it is difficult to hold the camera instead of a rod so be careful what you wish for. Regardless if one is fishing or not it is always a pleasure being outside and enjoying time by the river. I threw this together last friday as a montage of trout eating big dries on the surface. There are few things more exciting then watching trout gracefully sip a bug off the surface. I posted this vid last week so some of you may have seen it already, if you have thank you for watching. If you haven’t here it is for your viewing pleasure. Happy New Year.

Colorado Trout from Joey Macomber on Vimeo.