Thank you Aaron for a great weekend! Sorry for the long post, there is a lot to report. Hope you enjoy the story.

Let's see, where to begin?

Hazardous driving? Check.
Torn waders? Check.
Dead battery? Check.
Broken reel? Check.
Snow, wind, ice? Check.

Steelhead? CHECK!!!!!


What an incredible weekend of fishing. We left after work on Friday to find major lake effect snow North of Syracuse. The roads got slippery fast, but Aaron expertly maneuvered the car, while I held on tight, prayed, and just about sweat through my T-shirt! We arrived in good time, and rigged up for the morning, carrying two rods each, one and two handers.

Up at 430, quick coffee, then the L-O-N-G walk in. About a mile through the snow and wind and cold. Air temperatures were around 20deg. On arrival to the river, I started "casting" the spey rod. Barely five minutes later, right off the rod tip, FISH ON...then off, too much pressure. Guides icing up. Few minutes later, fish on again, and again came right off. I had great difficulty handling the big two handed rod, and the ice on the guides was UNBEARABLE! Difficult to have your first spey experience under those conditions, but I tried, and Aaron patiently taught me the rudiments of the cast. Did I mention that the icy guides were unbearable?

Aaron was routinely casting his spey setup to mid river and well beyond, and honestly catching monster steelhead at will. Fishing was outstanding. I switched to my 9ft 6wt and started hooking up too, and successfully landed a couple soon after. Aaron's advice during the long fights was invaluable.

We found fish just about everywhere we went, more steelhead than browns. A new experience for me was catching a 5+ lb brown trout and being disappointed! Around lunchtime, I heard a gasp and looked upstream to see an ashen-faced Aaron and some cursing. He developed a huge wader tear in a bad spot and the cold 36deg water had rushed in. The tear was the right angle variety about 6in in length. He wanted to stay, but I needed a break anyway, so convinced him to undertake the long walk out. As we were walking out, I think we each caught a couple more.

We accomplished a field repair of the boots at the shop with duct tape and some hot melt glue. It actually held up well enough to get Aaron through the day, and Aquaseal was applied overnight. We fished the afternoon and explored more river, again finding fish in good numbers.

Next morning (Sunday) same scenario, although even colder with the new snow. I didn't even carry the spey, relegating my casting lessons to better conditions. I instead fished with Aaron's 9.5ft 7wt; what a terrific conventional rod.

If you can believe it, Sunday was even better than Saturday, and we hooked and landed many, many more. Overall I would say our landing percentage was about 75%, but we had all manner of failures and lost fish. Aaron had a steelhead grab his fly right off the rod tip and literally yank the rod in half at the ferrule! I had a terrible fly line tip wrap during a fight. I released all pressure from the fish and Aaron untangled it. The fish was still on and we landed it! During the "hero shot" however, the fish squirmed free, oh well. We also had frozen reel failures, a broken reel seat that we repaired by cannabalizing a small screw from my backup reel and I had one especially large steelhead STRAIGHTEN OUT a very strong modern hook! During its run, that fish threw up a wake that would make any jet ski proud!

We quit early on Sunday for the trek home. At the first gas stop, we shut off the engine and gassed up. Turn the key, nothing but a slow turnover, again and again. Dead battery! No jumper cables readily available, so let's try to pop start. While Aaron drove, I pushed, but it was impossible to get traction in the snow and ice on the slight forward incline. I couldn't push it uphill, so we did a pop start in reverse...on the second try, it worked!

A terrific weekend, lots of laughs, some really excellent lessons for me, and a strong desire to go back (and right now!).

Here are some of the many pictures I took, sorry I am too tired to caption them all!







Aaron caught this same fish downstream two weeks ago!



The ultimate hero shot...fish not as large as it looks!





DrDaveTheRave --- you will no doubt add the good fish-catching mojo to the spey rod. Good luck!