…my oft times fishing partner M. passed along the photo below to prove it!  I wasn’t able to tag along but M. recently hit one of the upper-Columbia tributaries prospecting for Steelhead and scored big.  He landed two large wild fish and busted off another.  Damn, I’m jealous!

Note the coloration on the fish below.  It’s because these are actually summer-run Steelhead that entered the Columbia months ago and have traveled hundreds of miles upstream navigating nets, dams and warm water to reach their spawning grounds.  Amazing fish!  Our local Puget Sound and Olympic Peninsula Steelhead spawn very close to the salt in comparison, only a few miles upstream in some cases.  Those fish are the ‘chromers’ you often hear about but so rarely see.  That’s because the runs are so depressed.   Joking aside, hopefully our local Steelhead don’t get any closer to the metaphorical Unicorn.  It’s not a good time to be a Steelhead angler in Washington.

This river’s run is actually ESA listed, cannot be retained and should be carefully handled.  The only reason fishing is allowed at all is because there are also hatchery bred fish in the system that need to be removed.  Funny as it sounds, you’re actually not allowed to release the hatchery fish.