4-15-04 - Lots of mist hung over the Root on this chilly morning.

Justin hooks up but it turns out to be foul...

Now FAT is on...all in my darn honey hole!

FAT workin' his steelhead prowess by being his own netboy...

Fat's skills paid of with this hen.

Check out this photo of Justin fighting what would become his first steelie of 2004.

There it is, dark but a steelhead all the same!

Check out that hookset!

4-15-04 - Steelhead in the mist...

Waters Fished: Root River
Fish Caught: 0/1 personally, 5 landed by the four of us in total.
Outing Date: 4-15-04
Weather: Sunny
Air Temp: Probably 30's
Water Temp: N/A - still no thermometer
Water Level: 75 CFS or so
Water Color: slightly stained, probably 8" visibility
Fish Species: Steelhead
Pattern Fished: Eggs / small yarn flies
Pattern Color: Pink, Peach, Red, Chartreuse, Blue etc...
Fishing Quality: better than yesterday

I'm not going to go for quite the quick report, but let's just say we all had FUN. We got to Lincoln Park EARLY...it was 5:00 AM at the latest, and started shining for fish. FAT was out, as was Ken. The big surprise was that JUSTIN made it out too, in fact I'm pretty sure this was only his second or third trip of the year!

Well, NOTHING showed up when we hit the stream with the spotlights...all the fish that had been there the night before were either tucked away deep or had dropped back...not good. Justin suggested we go upstream to Quarry, as he had been up there earlier in the week and seen good numbers of fish, but apparently not landing any of his hookups.

To my surprise the gates at Quarry Park were open; we got in and started spreading out...each of us going to his respetive "honey hole". I've always liked the riffles downstream from the big pool, and in the early pre-dawn fog I managed my first hookup with a NICE steelie who rolled me several times before managing to come free. MP is now 0/1.

Justin saw this and came down...he proceded to hook up as well, but landed his foul after a LONG battle.

Go figure, we have the whole river but everyone has to come up and fish my honey hole...FAT hops in and slams one too...I think that one got away though. Meanwhile Ken has been working downstream and landed a nice fair hen.

As the morning progressed steelhead moved from the fast water to the tail of the pool, and slowly our angling locations shifted as well. At one point I went to cross the shelf, but as I stepped in I spooked a steelhead that was sitting in plain view immediately above the shelf in a small, chair-sized pool. I tried the first riffle up from the shelf for a bit, but it turns out there's actually some really deep water up there for a fish to hide in.

FAT turned on again and was stuck by himself to land an average sized post-spawn hen...took a while to get over there and I got to take some pictures of him fumbling with the net!

But I think the story of the day was Justin's first steelhead for 2004; FAT has been drifting the run for 10 minutes or so; Justin walks up, and on his first or second cast it's FISH ON! A dark buck was the resultant fish, but man check out the hookset on that (see below).

We left at about 8:45 AM as more anglers started showing up..not a bad morning - FAT landed 3 fair, Justin 1, Ken 1, and MP with the big O.

  MP