When: 7:30 am
Where: Eagle Fern Park
Rod/Line: 7 to 9 weight rod with a floating line.
Leader: 10 to 12lb Maxima
Flies: Egg patterns (Gorman's Caballero Egg, Babine Special , Glo-Bug Lifters, etc.)
Other: Waders, Strike indicators, BB split-shot
Directions: Eagle Fern Park

Activities
Coffee, hot chocolate, and donuts will be provided in the morning. Rob Crandall will give us an on the river (creek) presentation starting at 8 am. After the presentation we fish! We meet back at the park (covered area) around noon for some good chili (compliments of Lane), and hopefully some good fishing stories.

General Fishing Information
The best approach is usually dead drifting the egg patterns under a strike indicator. Another approach is to use short-line nymphing techniques and dead drift without indicators.

Fishing Report - Updated 2/9/07

Eagle Creek Hatchery has reported no new fish since 1/26.  Of course that doesn't mean there hasn't been any new fish.  With the weather warming up a bit over the last few days I would suspect some fish to be moving through the system.
 

2007 Steelhead Counts (Eagle Creek National Hatchery)

 
The Post Fish-Along Report

The weather was great, that is if you like rain and 40 degrees.  There's just something about that sort of day that makes it feel like perfect winter steelhead fishing weather.  We had about 10 members show up for the fish-along.  As always Rob gave an excellent presentation but it unfortunately didn't help us catch any fish.  We fished the water around Eagle Fern park in the morning and meet back at the under cover area around noon for lunch.  The chili, corn bread, and potato salad was excellent. 

My son (Keric) and I headed up to the water below the hatchery after lunch.  On our way into the canyon we meet several groups of fishermen (those so called "gear guys") heading out, one group had a nice fish,  and everyone we talked to said they had seen and or hooked a fish that morning.  Unfortunately for us  morning seemed to be the "golden time" to be in the canyon.  For all our hiking up and down those big and slippery hills we never touched (or saw) a fish. 

On our way back out we stopped and fished one of same spots that we first fished on our way in.  Much to our surprise we found that someone had caught and cleaned a fish there in the 3 hours since we first fished it.  The question I have to ask myself is was that fish there when we fished it, or had it moved in sometime in that 3 hour period.  My guess is that the fish were moving.  The water conditions were perfect for fish to move through the system and we should have probably figured that out, similar to how you first look at the hatch, or lack thereof, when fishing for trout.  Maybe we should have just picked a nice spot and fished it for 3 hours instead of doing all that searching.  If you think about it, our flies would have been in the water instead of hooked to an eyelet on our rods and we could have greatly increased our chances of hooking up.  But, if that were true you would have thought we would have seen them, at least one, but we didn't.  Which leads me to another possible theory.  That being that the fish were moving, but not during the day.  Instead they were moving at night and holding in those classic Eagle Creek steelhead spots.  That would explain why the guys heading out of the canyon at noon had all seen or hooked fish.  It would also offer an explanation as to why someone else was able to pull a fish out of a hole that we had fished earlier. Maybe it was there and it just wasn't interested in our flies, I've heard that other tactics (jigs, bait, etc.) can be more effective, or maybe our presentation just wasn't quite right, or maybe we just didn't get the fly in the right lane.  I guess it's yet another lesson to add to our winter steelhead education.

I heard that Rob (who also fished the canyon (but where) below the hatchery hooked 5 fish on Saturday and 7 on Sunday.  I can honestly say we fished almost everything we could Sat. afternoon and we never saw Rob, so where was he fishing?  I think it's time to go fishing with Rob :-).

 

Wader up! 

Rob helping Keric with a nail knot

An on the water lesson from Rob 

Hooking and fighting - a rock fish :-)