The steelhead trout is one scrappy fish

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, January 27, 2007

Pound for pound, its the fightingest fish around.

This hoary old cliche was first used, I think, to describe smallmouth bass, back when the sportfishing world was not the huge, readily available, world-wide adventure it is today. When you traveled by train to Maine to catch brook trout, landlocked salmon and, of course, smallmouth bass. The era of northwoods fishing camps, cane rods, pipe smoke and handmade, wooden canoes.

Stating today that the bronzeback is the fightingest fish around, pound for pound, would get you a heated argument and perhaps physical violence, in several languages and from several continents. Peacock bass, tarpon, Atlantic salmon, bonefish, marlin, bluefin tuna and coho would be likely to enter the picture. Some native northwesterners might argue for spring chinook, but others would say, “Tie a 10-pound chum salmon to a 10-pound chinook, and the chum would tow the king downriver, along with any 10-pound smallmouth you might be able to find.”

So do I have a candidate? Absolutely.

Pound for pound, the fightingest fish around is a steelhead. Particularly a big, brawny, broad-shouldered steelhead – a snow-belly, fresh in from the salt with sea lice on his flanks and fire in his eye. A native fish of 20-plus pounds, with extreme attitude. A coiled spring ready to take to the air, to pull you into the blowdowns, and to tear your tackle asunder, smiling all the while.

Steelhead are something special, always have been, always will be. I’ve known it from the day in the 1950s when I caught my first, in the Sauk Pool below Rockport, on the Skagit. And the Skagit, in my opinion, remains the place to pick a fight with this icon of the Northwest piscatorial lifestyle.

Guide, raconteur, radio talk show host and avid Skagit River booster T.J. Nelson of Lake Stevens agrees with me on this one, big time. February, March and April is the window of opportunity for those mining steelhead gold, he said, in a river still relatively pristine and still with a relatively healthy native steelhead run.

The wild fish start coming in around mid-January, Nelson said, and until March 1 you can still fish bait, work the whole river, and keep hatchery fish if you wish. After March 1, the river is closed from Concrete to the pipeline at Sedro-Woolley, and the remainder goes to catch and release, single barbless hooks, no bait and no scent.

“There’s a reason why the state closes the middle river, and you can use that to your advantage,” Nelson said. “They close it to protect a group of native spawners that use the area – big, strong fish which, like chinook, have the strength to utilize the large gravel, the rocky structure, of that stretch of river for spawning.”

There will undoubtedly be at least a scattering of those fish, willing to play, before the March 1 closure, around Birdsview, Lyman (access at Lyman), Day Creek, Finney Creek, Hamilton, and others. Some of those fish will be true hogs, Nelson said, coming close to the estimated 30-plus pounder reliably reported released last year on the Sauk.

After the middle river closure, the action moves upstream, and steelhead fly fishermen join those using standard tackle on the river.

“During late March and April, the river becomes “holy water” for the fly fishermen,” Nelson said. “From Concrete to Newhalem, and on the Sauk up to the Whitechuck and beyond, flogging the riffles and hiking the canyons.”

Drift-boaters fishing standard gear have also enjoyed the late C&R season, on the Sauk and to a somewhat lesser degree on the upper Skagit, for years. But with the “no motor while fishing” regulation, most sled owners were shut out. Few modern sleds are equipped with the oars of yore, and thus with no means to control a free drift, back bounce divers and bait, or backtroll plugs. This spring will be different, Nelson said.

“A new rule this year will allow us to use an electric motor while fishing,” he said. “That’s really exciting news and it will open up a huge non-harvest recreational fishery for hundreds of people with larger, motorized sleds and other boats, in March and April.”

Sled owners now will have an option to heading down to the Cowlitz after March 1, Nelson said, by putting something like his favorite electric, the 80-pound-thrust, 24-volt, MinnKota Riptide series on the transom, and heading for the upper Skagit, armed with plugs, Corkies, yarn tufts, rubber eggs, pink worms and similar gear.

The two most popular sled drifts will likely be Marblemount to Rockport, and Rockport to Concrete, often depending on the amount of color coming in from the Sauk. The bottom end of the Sauk itself is sandy, not steelhead holding water, and you’ll have to run up above several riffles to find suitable structure. Or, in a drift boat, launch at the relatively new ramp at the second government bridge, and fish down to the Faber Ferry access on the Skagit.

Nelson’s favorite March-April section of river, without a doubt, would be the stretch from Rockport to Concrete.

“I always look first for fishable water below the Sauk,” he said. “That’s classic, old-line, Skagit steelheading: the leaning cedar, Dutchman’s flat, Faber Ferry, the Irishman’s riffle – magic names to a lot of fishermen, over a lot of years. And, too, a little color from the Sauk can often be a blessing in dam-controlled, gin-clear water, especially when you’re after skittish wild fish.”

Nelson feels you hit larger fish on the Skagit system backtrolling, but more fish free drifting, and he stays away from feeding a diver/lure setup slowly down to fish in a hole, because they tend to hook more deeply and are thus harder to release unhurt. For the same reason, he said you’ll need a knotless or rubber-mesh net to get fish back into the water quickly and without damage.

Side drifting 4-inch or 6-inch pink worms under a float is popular, and wild fish, particularly, seem to like ‘em. Feel naked without bait? Various artificial egg lures are available, as long as you wash off the scent. Complete the drift rig with a slinky or a piece of 3/8ths pencil lead on a sliding rig, five feet of leader, and a number 4 Gamakatsu hook. Many rig the hook with yarn, and a small puffball, hooked lightly and pushed up around the eye of the hook, like a large single egg. Any color is good, as long as it’s pink, Nelson said. Or red, or occasionally purple or blue. In really clear water, try green or chartreuse.

Nelson backtrolls, sled or drift boat, with level-wind gear, but prefers ultra-light rods and spinning reels for free drifting in a sled.

“You can go with lighter, sportier tackle in a sled, because if you hook a hog, you can move with him,” Nelson said. “Berkeley makes a nice, Buzz Ramsey-designed light rod, the Air IM-7, a 9 -footer for 6- to 10-pound line, for under $100.”

Launch at Rockport and fish down, concentrating off creeks, in the riffles, covering a lot of water. On a take, be sure to note depth, flow and structure the three most important fish-finding factors and concentrate on similar water the rest of the day.

The Skagit is reasonably big water and can be intimidating, but it’s well worth the several trips necessary for the learning curve, Nelson said.

“Skagit wild steelhead really stand out today as a good, solid, reliable, consistent, beautiful fishery,” he said. “They’re under-utilized, particularly in the current climate of inconsistency in other steelhead and salmon fisheries available to us.”

E-mail Nelson at tom@fishskagit.com; or go to his Web site www.fishskagit.com for tips, links to river levels and water conditions, and more.