10-11 SS Huge Steelhead

  An equation for weighing steelhead… make that big steelhead.  I didn’t think I would ever be able to say this but Josh Mills has outdone himself.  A little trip to the river produced a mega-steelhead. You have to listen to this story. We go up on the Clearwater River and we finish our spey rods  for steelhead, this is the time of year you get the most savage takes, you get dry line takes which means the fish is going to come up top and take the fly off the top of the water while it is swinging through the current. Well I am antsy  to get down on the water and I am not kidding you at about the 4^th cast I tied into the biggest steelhead of my life. It sprinted off on me and peeled off a time of line and it turned into a bit of a slugfest for a total of 15 min. and I had a friend coaching me through it making sure there were no obstacles that this fish would run into and I was sure that at any second this fish was going to spit the hook. I could see its tail coming out of the water every now and then and it jumps out of the water and I’m saying oh goodness, this fish is massive. Finally after 15 min. I lead him into a pool and my buddy reaches down and grabs its tail and I just about passed out at how big he was. It turns out that he was about 34 inches and in steelhead terms anything over 30 inches equals 10 pounds and every inch you go up is another pound so we figured that it was 14 or 15 pounds. It was beautiful.