Fishin' Magician: Dave Graybill

Fishing for steelhead on the Columbia River has been tough for me this year. I haven't given up, though and made another run to Bridgeport to see if there were some fish willing to bite.

I was joined by Jim Passage, and old hand at steelhead fishing, and Dennis Broughton who had not fished for steelhead before with a bobber and jig. We launched at the Bridgeport marina and RV park and since there were two other boats fishing above there, headed down to the Blow Hole, which is the outlet of the Colville Hatchery.

I think it was our second pass when my bobber sort of hesitated and then went under. I set the hook, got the fish to the boat, and we released a nice wild steelhead. A little later Broughton's bobber, which was way behind the boat, went down and he hooked another wild steelhead. It was great for him to get a fish, and he didn't mind at all releasing the fish.

We tried a couple of other spots but that did it for steelhead that day. We ran up to Rufus Woods, thinking we would troll for a couple of hours for triploids, but it was blowing hard. Oh, well. I'll give Rufus a shot on another day.