I know January for the best of all winter steelhead months…  the steelhead , with the brightness of the sea still on him, is the livest of all the river’s life.  When you have made your cast for him, you are no longer a careless observer.  As you mend the cast and work your fly well down to him through the cold water, your whole mind is with it, picturing its drift, guiding its swing, holding it where you know he will be.  And when the shock of his take jars through your forearm and you lift the rod to its bend, you know that in a moment the strength of his leaping body will shatter the water to brilliance, however dark the day. -Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps

I envy Haig-Brown’s January experiences in the PNW during the early part of the 20th century.  These days, December/January are the months when the hatchery steelhead return to PNW rivers, in ever decreasing numbers despite huge numbers of planted smolts.  The wild fish begin coming in in January but the later months of winter are best for the native fish.  I have read that the early returning winter steelhead runs have been largely exterminated by the hatchery cycle – early returning strains are selected so that they remain segregated from the later returning natives.  However, this means that any early returning fish face gill-nets, increased kill-fishery pressure and competition with hatchery fish.  So it’s rare to hear about someone catching a native steelhead in the early season these days.

The returns for Puget Sound rivers have become so depressed that they will close the first week in February to protect the native fish.  There is a lot of debate on the subject and it’s an incredibly complex issue but I feel that the impact of the incidental mortality of a catch & release fishery is pretty low on the list of causes for depressed steelhead runs.  Given, the environmental issues, Native American treaty rights, politics, etc. it’s a true “Wicked Problem“.  makes me depressed to think about it…

…and after a nasty morning of fishing getting skunked on my soon-to-close homewater, I was feeling pretty down.  We’ve had a lot of snow the last week and the plows had piled up a big snow wall in front of all the pullouts.  I ended up parking on the side of the road about a half mile from the normal pullout and hiked to the trail as cars loaded with skis & snowboards streamed past.  I’m sure they were wondering what in the hell the dude with the big fishing pole was doing walking along the highway in the rain.

Yes, rain.  And a bit later, driving wind to go along with slush turning the already snot-slick boulders on the riverbank into some sort of antigravity device designed to send anglers ass-over-head into the 34deg river.  All that to fish a river with no steelhead in it…

Yet, when I got home and read the Roderick Haig-Brown section on January steelhead fishing, something happened.  It was like a pat on the back from across the decades.  Reflecting on his passage above, I found myself silently nodding “Yes, that’s it exactly” and all this craziness somehow makes sense…

A new toy!  A 3 1/2″ 1912 Salmon Perfect built by reelsmith Chris Henshaw in England.  An original Hardy 1912 Perfect is outside my financial resources and even if I did buy one, no way I would take a that sort of collectable reel to the river (see the note about slick boulders above).  Chris’ modern interpretations of the vintage Hardy designs are functional works of art.  I can’t wait to hear this thing sing when a steelhead makes that first big run…

It’s been my personal tradition the last few years to go fishing on New Year’s Day regardless of whether or not I actually have a chance of catching anything.  Two years ago, I went to a beach and caught a nice little sea-run cutthroat.  Last year, I went to my usual run on the Sky and it was so cold that the felt soles of my wading boots were freezing to the rocks I stood on…

This year, I tweaked my back helping the kids with their wrestling and thought I was going to have to break tradition and stay home.  I was in a fair amount of pain the night before and still stiff on Sunday morning.  However, the weather looked surprisingly good – 50deg and partly cloudy so I downed some ibuprofen, grabbed my big Guideline LeCie and headed to the river.

There were a lot of people out on the river so I went to a run that I knew I could have to myself.  Probably because there are never any fish there…  A shame really as it’s a nice piece of swinging water.  My thought was to just get my line wet to preserve the tradition and head back to the house.  Maybe sneak some greasy fast food (never get it at home) on the drive.  Hiking down to the river, I noticed my back was feeling pretty good.  I ended up working through the run and going back to hit a couple of the fishier sections twice.  It had rained hard earlier in the week and the water was dropping and clearing with that nice ‘steelhead green’ color.  However, the thing I didn’t notice before I left was the wind.  It was howling.  Luckily it was blowing downstream so even my crappy river-right double spey didn’t matter.  Just toss the line up in the air and let the wind take it.

I fished my new Bourbon Prawn most of the run.  It swims very nice and the red Golden Pheasant and Jungle Cock really glowed in the water.  I also tried out a tandem tube bunny leech that I recently tied after the Silvy pattern.  When I want to get down and nasty, that’ll probably be my go-to fly.  I had one grab that might have been a fish but I’m going to call it a rock so I don’t feel bad about missing the take…

Anyway, I paid my penance to the fishing spirits and I’m looking forward to fishing in 2012.  My resolutions for the year are much more simple than the 10 of the past two years:

1)  Fish more than I did in 2011

2)  Have a net decrease in my investment in fishing tackle

3)  Continue to help beginners or newcomers whenever possible

4)  Contribute both time and money to conservations efforts

Oh yeah, catching a big native winter-run steelhead on the OP wouldn’t suck…

Happy New Year!