Fishin' Magician - Dave Graybill

December 5

I finally made a visit to below Wells Dam for steelhead a few days ago. This was after having terrible luck fishing further up river. My fishing buddy Rollie Schmitten and I started our day in Pateros. We tried drifting our bobbers and jigs in two spots where I am used to having very good action; in the estuary and then down river at the Rocks. We didn't even get a sniff in the estuary and Schmitten got just one hit at the Rocks. After a bowl of chowder and a sandwich at the Rivers Restaurant, we decided to give Wells a try. We have had some great times below Wells Dam and hadn't fished for steelhead, and this seemed like a good day to do it. We made a few long drifts along the bar and below, hooking just one fish. We switched colors of our Maxi-Jigs and made the run across the river to the big eddy. Settling into the eddy, and actually drifting up river, we finally got some action. Schmitten released a nice wild fish and not five minutes later I got a 9-pounder keeper. Whew. It was a near thing, but we kept our success streak alive.

December 7

After catching a couple of nice steelhead below Wells Dam my fishing friend Rollie Schmitten and I returned to this spot to try again. We actually started our day fishing just below the launch, along the bar. Schmitten got a fish on his first cast, and I thought we were in for a big day of steelhead fishing. Once again we were rigged up with bobbers and Maxi-Jigs. We didn't get a bump on our next pass, but I hooked up on the third. We then tried the opposite shore but didn't find any evidence of steelhead in the hole that had produced two for us on the last trip. I had brought along some back trolling set ups so we gave this method a try off the bar. On our first drift I got a dandy wild fish, and we continued on down stream, using these rigs until I lost them on deep boulders in heavy current. We had more river to cover anyway, and were going to try some other spots and end up in Chelan Falls. We fished a lot of likely looking water but had no success until we got all the way back down to our money hole below the Beebe Bridge. Here we got one more fish before we called it a day.