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.