The Fishin' Magician:

I was able to get out and fish for steelhead twice recently. My wife Eileen and I ran up to Wells Dam on Monday and fished off the bar below the dam. The flows were great and river wasn't too high.

We worked our way down the bar and at about the mid point my bobber went down, and I hooked a good fish. I took me a while to get it to the bank, and see that it was about a 10-pound wild hen. I removed the Maxi-Jig from it jaw and let it go.

The next day I my fishing buddy Rollie Schmitten and I went back up to Wells and fished from his 16-footer. We made several drifts off the bar and I got a 6-pound wild fish, and then we moved further downstream, where Rollie hooked and released a fish of about the same size. We pulled the boat and put it back in at Chelan Falls where we did much better.

We spent about half the time that we did at Wells Dam and I landed four fish and lost another. For the day we had ten strikes and landed six steelhead. It was a great day of late winter fishing.