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.

I went fishing with a friend of mine, magnum, yesterday who works at a nice establishment in Vail, Colorado called Block 16. I told magnum I wouldn’t put this on my blog since this is how a brotha makes a buck when he is not rowing a boat. But, since LLM only had a couple thousand unique visitors last year, I am sure this shouldn’t effect his nightly jingle. Especially since Mexico City was not a hot spot on my google analytics. Anyway…. As we were driving over the pass he said “oh this will piss ya off. The chef at our restaurant is has wild steelhead on the menu.” I looked over at him and said “well tell him to take it off them off the menu and also tell him that these fish are almost endangered.” Well obviously being a fisherman and understanding the problems wild steelhead are facing magnum had already told his chef to get that shit off the menu. Magnum has also been telling people in fur coats and diamonds not to order Wild Steelhead. Not easy to do when you know that texan with the ten gallon hat and a plastic wife is going to tip you large. According to our conversation yesterday the chef is going to sell what he has left and take Steelhead off the menu. I hope. If not magnum is going to knock that mutha out. Kind like what happened to this rangers fan after the winter classic… Danny Briere sucks For missing that penalty shot.

If you would like to learn more about Wild Steelhead in restaurants please visit this LINK.

I like Itunes. But I like Pandora more. My favorite stations as of late has been the Old Crow Medicine Show Station.. Don’t have it? Try it you will be pleasantly surprised. Especially if you like folk, bluegrass music. Here are 2 bands that I have been recently introduced to via Pandora and I have been wearing out their albums each day.
Greensky Bluegrass is the first video below if you have heard of them well thanks for telling me sooner. The album five interstates is worth checking out.

This band belwo is called The Steeldrivers. The lead singer here has got some serious soul. I posted this song earlier of FB a while ago but I really enjoy it I hope you do to. The album Sticks That MAde Thunder should also be in your ear.