Day 1

The top of the river was empty when we arrived, so we took up spots in the top pool. We could see one fish flashing in the shallow water from the bridge, so we knew it would be a good day. Two of us headed downriver to do some scouting, but didn't get too far before we found all of the other fisherman. The lower river was packed, with every good hole having 1-2 people in it. We headed back up river and took up spots in the lower half of the top pool. Jeff had lost one nice fish earlier, only losing it when a fisherman downriver wasn't very helpful when it ran around him. We immediately started hooking sucker after suck. They where in the river pretty thick. I finally hooked one nice steelhead in the 28-30 inch range, but the hooks popped out after a couple of headshakes. We decided after a while to head back downriver to find fish and fight the crowds.

We found a couple of fish under the bridge, so we decided to give it a shot. I had seen a flash in deeper water, so I started drifting where I had seen the fish. After quite a few drifts through the pool, my line finally went tight and a fat fish flashed on the surface. She took me downstream and after a short fight we got her in the net. She was a girthy 26 inch hen, still pretty fresh from the lake.

The other fish under the bridge had spooked, so we decided to head back upriver. We were walking the high bluffs towards the top half of the river when Jeff thought he had spotted a fish over on the far bank. He crossed over the river and spotted the fish holding in a shallow riffle. He was soon hooked up and I was able to net the fish, a nice 28 inch hen. We found a couple more fish around, but weren't able to get any more hooked up.

Day 2

We parked down by the second bridge and headed straight underneath to see if any fish were holding under it. No luck, so we started heading upstream. I came up to the big bend and there were fish everywhere on the gravel. There were maybe 12-15 fish, with a couple of 30+ inch fish around. I was soon hooked up with a nice hen at the top of the run. I had to put the pressure on to keep her out of the logs, but after a quick fight we had her in the net. She was a nice chrome fish in the 23-24 inch range. Matt was soon also hooked up and landed a similar sized fish.

Rob was hooking up with fish, but was having trouble keeping them glued. Finally he hooked one of the larger fish and we were able to get him in the net. He was a brightly colored male that taped out to 32 inches. The fish had pretty much all spooked back up in to the deeper hole, so we decided to head back down river. A couple of our favorite spots held fish and I found one monster fish, but we couldn't get them to take anything. I had to be back to MN early, so we left the river early afternoon.

The flows the first day were around 50-60 cfs, coming down to 35 cfs the second day. We were one day late, as we heard reports of 10+ fish each the day before. The water was pretty clear on Saturday and you could see the bottoms of the pools on Sunday. The best flies were egg-sucking leeches, eggs, and San Juans.