There seems to be a pattern with our winter fish-a-longs this year; just like last month I’m typing this report on a windy, rainy Sunday and feeling thankful we had much nicer day yesterday for the Sandy River fish-a-long.

With the higher water conditions we had a light turnout. Thanks to everyone for coming. A special thanks to Cheryl Kilhefner for her delicious lunch.

We started out the morning by enjoying hot coffee and telling fishing stories for about 45 minutes before wadering up and hitting the water. The stories were good and there didn’t seem to be any good reason to rush to get out there.

The water was running a little high; right at 12’ on the Sandy River gauge. The color was better than we guessed it would be, a nice winter steelhead green with about 2 feet of visibility. The current in the center of the river was too fast to make a good presentation so we concentrated on the slower water lane on our side of the river.

The fish gods were smiling and we landed a nice native winter steelhead about 11 pounds; a health hen steelhead that was perfect except for a sea lion bite down by her tale.

Our next fish-a-long will be at the Oregon Fishing Club for Stillwater trout fishing.