We arrived at the Brule around 9 PM the day before the opener, only to discover that there were already 5-10 cars in each parking lot. We decided instead of camping out on our favorite hole, we would wake up early in hopes of still finding a stretch to fish. When we arrived, there were people everywhere. Apparently the Brule is no longer a secret as there were cars and people everywhere. We found a stretch above FF and on his third cast Jerry hooked into a monster brown. With one quick run and a turn of its head, it broke him off. We continued to work our way back towards the FF bridge, working holes and pockets when available. I found a small often overlooked pool near the Sauna hole open, and sure enough a couple of drifts in I hooked up to our first steelhead. After a short fight, I lost the fish as I attempted to land it. It was a small fish around 20 inches, caught on a red San Juan Worm. We continued to fish above and below FF, below 13, and then up around the Sucker Hole, but didn’t tie into any more fish. We fished mostly Eggs, San Juan’s, and tried some Stoneflies without any luck. Water temps were in the high 30’s to low 40’s, a little on the cold side for flies.