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Sandy River Steelhead 

April 22, 2007 Field Report:

Last week was a great week to be on the Sandy River! The fishing through May will remain productive with the current conditions and warming water temperatures. Steve Lane from Arlington, Washington started the week off with a bang landing three Steelhead. Two of the three fish were very bright wild Winter hens wieghing 7-9 lbs a piece. There are a bunch of Winter steelhead spawning right now and our goal was to find the fresh ones. Our mission was accoplished concentrating our efforts in the faster moving bodies of water where bright upstream traveling fish could be intercepted. The darker spawners  are found in the shallow edges and tailouts were suitable spawning gravel is found.I counted over 8 "redds" and
	I am sure that I missed seeing many more. The spent kelts will be found holding in deeper very soft water. Knowing there would be many of these older darker fish around it is always an ethical and challanging pursit to not catch these Steelhead that should be left alone.  As it would turn out for the remainder of the week, the rest of the fish we would hook were all very bright Wild Steelhead! There should be a fair number of summer Steelhead and Spring Chinook in the river with more entering everyday. We did not find any this week but no complaints with the quality fresh Winter or should I say  "Spring"  Steelhead found! These Steelhead are very aggressive and hot once hooked. The water temperatures averaged 43* to 45*.
I also had the pleasure to guide new anglers Nancy and James Mayor from Portland, Oregon. Nancy is a teacher and Jim writes for the Oregonian newspaper. They learned to Speycast and Nancy landed a very fresh Wild hen! This fish was constantly out of the water jumping and running so fast and strong she wanted to hand the rod to me to finish the fight. After some calming instruction on playing the fish I disappeard to find the camera on the boat. When I returned she almost had it tuckered and ready to land. Her husband Jim tailed it for her! While guiding Justin Teegarden I was able to captured some great video action of the acrobatics that two bright Steelhead dispayed along with some scortching runs into the backing and a couple of long distance releases! As soon as I get the video downloaded I will share it with you. It is fantastic!

All the Best,

Marty and Mia

www.oregonsteelhead.com