Soo Trip 2014 Vision Rods, Steelhead, Steelhead and Steelhead "Part 2"

 We arrived back at the Soo around noon, Nick and Jay headed off to book a room for the night. I drop Brad off back at the Fly shop and headed back to book myself a room with the understanding we all meet to head out to the rapids at 2 pm. The Soo rapids are the head water from Superior spilling into the St. Maries River and with Superior just officely being ice free that week the water was dam cold. We just came from rivers with temps ranging around 15 degree Celsius (59F) to 2C (35F).  With  6 gates open to the main rapids we could not fish with so much water  which also forced all the fish to be concentrated in the manmade section of the river.

Brad and I fished my favourite pool using strike indicator working the drift like a float rodder would. This hole is deep slow and a natural drift is how you want to attack it. Nick and Jay fished the run above look for a spawning fish then while not disturbing the hen they fished the 5 or 6 fish waiting behind her to gobble up any spawn or bugs that she kicked up while digging her bed up and that drifted away from her . The worst thing you can do is disturb the female. One reason is she need to complete her job to relpenish the resource and second she why the five or six fish are sitting behind her which are usally drop backs or males trying to stage to be the dominate fish.

Now Jay coming from a spin casting background, had never caught a steelhead on the fly rod ever. First cast he ties into his first ever steelie on the fly. Well being a virgin on the fly rod the fish kicked his ass and wave at him with its tail as he dove for more secure dephs. But 3 fish later Jay was able to master the fly rod and landed his 1st steelie on the fly. By the end of the trip Jay had improved so much it was like he had been fishing steelhead on the fly his whole life. He got the technic of nymphing down to a art as if he was a pro. Now the sickness of steelie fishing  had grasped Jay's inner sole and when Nick was ready to leave he couldnt get Jay off the water, "One last cast" I keep hearing.





Jay was so impressed with Brad's teachings of the finner art of fly fishing he sent this letter to the much appricated Brad  

Brad,

  Just wanted to shoot you a quick email to say thanks buddy! I have done a bunch of fishing over the years but this was EXTREMELY memorable! You taught me how to Spey cast in 5 mins and maybe 15 mins after that, I had a nice Speck! You did a great job putting us on to fish the whole trip! I have NEVER seen such a big run of huge steelies! I cant wait to come back! I have dreamed of it nightly! It will be sooner than you think 😉
Too think...I had hooked, and played, a WAY bigger fish than the one below! I thought I hooked a f*#king TUNA!!!
Thanks
J-
P.s say thanks to the Red Dragon for me, It was great to watch him fish. I learned a lot watching.

Sent from my iPhone

Jays Letter to Brad says it all on the fun we had on this trip

Oh the Red Dragon came from me biting into a hot saugage just off the gril and the steam that came out of my mouth look like a fire breathing Dragon. The boys were impressed lol.

Well as Jay puts it 2015 is being planned already.

Soo Steelies from Just An Aging Steelheader on Vimeo.