Fishing was tough this weekend with a lot of pressure on the rivers. We ended up fishing at the Stewart River on Friday afternoon after checking out the Sucker, French, and Lester Rivers and wanting to be free of the crowds. We fished the first pool 100 yards upstream from the scenic route bridge. It took about 30 minutes before hooking my first fish of the trip. It turned out to be only about a 10 inch smolt, which took a pink egg pattern, but I was glad to be on the board. Five minutes later I hooked and landed my first North Shore looper. It was a nice 22 inch female that also took an egg. I continued to fish the same hole, landing another 25 inch female looper about 15 minutes later. I continued to fish the hole for another half hour or so with no luck, so I left to go try the upper Lester. MP from Rambling Reports was also fishing on the Stewart on Friday. He had also noticed that fishing was very slow and commented on how the fish just weren’t around.

I returned to the Stewart to fish on Saturday morning to find a packed parking lot. Matt and I, a first time fly fisherman, were able to work our way into a nice hole about a quarter mile upstream of the bridge. I hooked a fish and lost in about 5 minutes. About minutes after that, Matt hooked his first ever fish on a fly rod. It took a new fly I designed, a variation of a San Juan worm, but it broke off. We were able to get into the hole I fished on Friday, but all it produced was another smolt on the same egg. The water temperature was still a little cold at around 38 to 40, so look to the run to continue to get better.