Mother Jan's B-day and the Klickitat Opener

Great fishing, tough catching. We heard of a couple fish  caught over the weekend but our crew did not land any Steelhead. We did however have one big yank. Fish counts over Bonneville have been less than average but have recently bumped up over the past 24 hours. Regardless it was a GREAT weekend.
Techniques fished    Floaters to T-14 and Skaters to 6 inches of Pink -  Really?

The most important part of this weekend was celebrating Jan Cottrell's B-day!  The party migrated back and forth between  The Steelhead Underground in Klickitat and  The Steelhead Ranch on the breaks of the river.  An impressive amount of people showed up to give mother Jan a hug!  This organic party just keeps growing year to year.  It was a 'flat out' awesome gathering.

The Food Menu
Jan's New Mexico Enchilada - Unfrickenbelievable....The best enchiladas, ever, period, end of story
BBQ Pork
New Mexico Chile
Chocolate Cake

The unofficial list that came to give Jan a hug
Steelie Mike and Jennifer with Lily, Kade & Reece
Brian, Dawn and Natalie Chou
Andrea and Daniel
Becca
Bo and Kirsten
Ben Dow
Jack Mitchell
Barney
Jay, Shane and James Thacker
Trey and Phyllis Combs
Molly
Kerry and Mary Ann Burkheimer
Charles
Dustin
Roger

Photo album here 

Life is good -jm

The Tallest Man on Earth

Trout is all from Rolf Nylinder on Vimeo.

Upper Columbia

Bruce with a nice Upper Columbia Bow

Upper Columbia Rally - Check it out!  The past week on the Upper Columbia has been GREAT.  With a mixture of techniques including; 

Dry line soft hackle swing
Retrieving streamers on 200 grain heads
Swinging streamers on 200 grain heads
Nymphing under the bobber and 
Dry fly fishing.

Been awhile....

Photo credit :  Dustin Stetson

Just a thought;

A moment is just a point of time in one's life and within that realm all things change and are never constant - Like a river.

The coolest thing about a river is that it is never the same on a daily basis.  How boring would life or a river be if it was exactly the same daily. The artery will ebb and flow with the conditions and change course through it's travel but one thing is for certain; The predominant path and goal,  is the ocean.  It always has been and will always be.

Man could take a lesson from this one.

The Real Shark Bow

Check out the teeth on this big resident buck rainbow caught on the Upper Columbia yesterday. My guess is this fish weighed 12 pounds+  @ 29 inches.  

Fly Fishing Troubadours

    

    Kerry Burkheimer and Trey Combs     Photo by Tomonori Higashi                                             

How cool is this photo!  Recently I spent a week on the OP chasing steelhead with Trey and Tomonori.  It was time for me to head home on the day that Kerry arrived to fish.  I would certainly have enjoyed fishing with both of them!  Tomonori snapped this pic when Trey was hooked up.

A Small Victory for American Reach Redbands

This paragraph was copied and condensed from the Upper Columbia Blogspot - Good friend and fellow Upper Columbia advocate,  Steve Bird's blog. Steve and I called concerned anglers to action on this topic a couple months back.....Somehow, someway our voices were heard in addition to others!

Beginning in May, Lake Roosevelt American Reach fishing regulation will reflect the increase daily kill limit of Walleye, currently 8, being increased to 16 in an effort to reduce predation on net-pen raised and native Kokanee and Redband Rainbow trout, as well as other natives. You folks who took the time to drop a comment to the WDFW, pat yourself on the back, your voices over-rode a strong spiny ray lobby fearful of losing their favorite fish.  More to come on the specifics of the slot limit etc...... Will keep you updated.