The Fishin' Magician: Seeking steelhead

Eric Granstrom and I hit the road last Saturday and headed up the Columbia looking for steelhead. We made out first stop at Chelan Falls. We tried to fish the hatchery outlet stream area, and down to the bridge. The water was higher than I had ever seen it here. It is typically ankle deep at the stream mouth, but we were up to our knees in water.

There is a point below here, just above the bridge that I planned for us to stand on to make some casts, and the water was so high that it was mostly under water and we were up to our knees again. We gave this up and made our way further up stream and fished from the bar below Wells Dam.

I felt good about the drift our bobbers and jigs were getting here, but the fish didn't seem to notice. We each just got one hit, but didn't hook up. I talked to Jeff Stroup, who was checking fish here, and he said that one boat came in with just one hatchery fish for their efforts.

I know that there are steelhead here and want to get back there and fish it from a boat. I have always caught fish at Wells in December and January. We just had a tough day.