Shake down crew works a run

The “Shakedown Crew” ditched out on the last weekend of the waterfowl season in an effort to put our hands on the first chromers of the year.  With our OP rivers coming off a 5-day blowout, things were dropping into prime form for field testing some new patterns I’ve been working on.

Opening the doors of an empty Bogy House, one would hardly believe this would be a full-blown steelhead lodge in less than a week.  The walls were bare and void of any steelhead-related artwork, the fly tying bench now just an empty wooden table, unoccupied by piles of brightly colored feathers.  After a morning of prep-work and hauling a season’s load of gear off our trailers, we now had our junk piled up inside the house and felt good enough to get out for a quick afternoon float.

Bogy House home for steelhead season

Checking a few spots on the way to our put-in, it was apparent we weren’t the only anglers watching the graphs last week.  We opted for an upper float, drooling over the water’s perfect emerald greenish hues. January exploratory floats are always exciting, as many of our rivers change with winter floods.  High water pushes gravel in and out of areas, creating new buckets, logjams, troughs, and running lanes. Discovering these new pockets for the first time of the season has us chipper and babbling with excitement like giddy little school-girls… I guess being addicted to steelhead has it’s downfalls.

The Shakedown Crew went found some fish on this quick float and saw another half a dozen chromers squirt out from under the boat.  All fish mint-bright with white bellies and black backs, adipose included.  A good sign of a solid run to come when there’s this many wild fish up high in January.

I think I just got grabbed!

Saturday night the rain started around 11 PM and didn’t quit.  We awoke sunday morning to spiked graphs but good visibility and opted for another float down a bit lower and a full day of swinging.  Fishing on the rise can be really tough, but adapting to changing conditions is essential to hook winter fish out here on the coast.  Focusing our swing efforts on moving lanes gave us a visual one chromer rolling through the slot and two hard knocks but no fish pinned.  By noon we were down to less than a foot of vis and pushed to the takeout.

Chrome what else can you say?

All and all, a great start to the 2012 season.  We’ll be setting up the lodge, watching the graphs, and stuffing already-full fly boxes for the next few days.  I’ve still got some open dates in mid Feb and have a few gaps to fill in March as well.  To book a trip or find out more about The Bogy House, call or email for details!

Nate McDonough is an Idylwilde Sig. Tier as well as a full time guide.  Winter and spring he is on the OP and in the summer and fall in AK.  To book a trip or find out more about The Bogy House call or email Nate.

• 509-460-9519
•  birchguide@gmail.com

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 10:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized and the tags Advice Alaska Environment Flies Guide news Photo Rainbows reports Signature Tier Steelhead Technique. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.