Steel factory

Too tired to write a full report after working a 12 hour shift at the steel factory. Yesterday was trout opener and we finally had access to some headwater areas where the steelheads were spawning. We mainly fished the pool for some hungry post-spawn steelhead. Most of the females were post-spawn already. Hopefully they'll be around for another 2 weeks. I'm contemplating taking a weekday off for another go at it. Yesterday, we waited for 1 hour for parking at 5am...people were already fishing by 12am and the lot was full by 2am as I was told.

Ken - 8 steelheads (lost a bunch to log jams and hooks coming out on jumps)

Andrea - 5 steelheads (not sure how many lost)

Michael - at least 4 steelheads (we fished apart for most of the day)

Matt - at least 6 steelheads, 3 white sucker (we fished apart for most of the day)

I fished with Andrea for most of the day. We did split apart to explore little slots, runs and holes throughout the day. He was lucky that every time he was hooked up, I happened to come looking for him (whenever he was gone for a while, I suspected he's hooked up, haha). I landed a couple of decent fish without any cameraman so I just quickly unhooked and released them.

I have a couple of videos of hook ups...but one fish ran into the log jam and busted me off...the other fish head shook on the surface and the hook came out. Again, every time I start filming, I lost fish...so I stop using the cursed GoPro. I may post the videos later...pretty sweet to watch me drift and see the float goes down...and the subsequent short run.

Just got to the first unoccupied pool, saw a fish resting in front of a rock...5 drifts later...BAM!



Then I lost one fish after another 30 minutes. We moved and after another hour, I hooked this one and handed the rod to Andrea.



As the water warmed up, the day got brighter and the sun came out, the fish turned on.



















Hungry fish...they LOVED nightcrawlers! Andrea and I only took one home. Most of them are still swimming out there somewhere.

Grinding it out in Virginia (Day 5)

There wasn’t too much to report on my end. I decided to sleep in since we would be driving back to Toronto. Michael woke up early to fish the morning low tide hoping to find a Northern Snakehead. However, he found none again but there were more signs of life at the warm water discharge. He saw some koi and hooked a possible goldfish. But by 9am, we really had to leave.

Our 9 hour drive was largely smooth going until we were near Rochester where we ran into some nasty snow squalls. But God was watching over us and we arrived home at 9:30pm safe and sound.

Overall, this expedition was extremely successful given the subpar conditions. We later discovered that other shad anglers were either skunked or caught only a couple of fish on Sunday, so our collection of hits, lost fish and landed fish was actually pretty decent. We were happy that the Chain Pickerel were quite cooperative and the Flier Sunfish were not very difficult. I was happy to find a bonus Warmouth Sunfish and even happier that Michael was rewarded with his first Redbreast Sunfish, Banded Killifish and a couple of 10lb+ Blue Catfish.

I’m already thinking about a summer trip back to Virginia to try for Flathead Catfish, a couple of micro sunfish species, and perhaps some more saltwater surf species.