It has been four days now since any resemblance of decent weather has been with us. We have had some serious west winds. And along with the wind we picked up over two inches of rain. Most of the trees are now stripped of their fall dress and by the looks of our yard any dead branch on any tree is now down, in addition to pine needles by the millions.
Prior to last Friday we experienced two weeks of the most wonderful fall weather one could ask for. What happens after this windy wet cold front leaves the area is hard to say, but one would think it won't be long for some serious frost and much cooler days and nights. (NOAA forecast for Deer Park)
It does appear the additional rain helped the remaining fish, staging out in the big lake, to enter the rivers and begin the spawning act. A buddy of mine and I fished the river yesterday and we got into some really fresh and silver looking fish.
I hooked up with my first big steelhead of the fall and it did everything a steelhead will do to get away from that hook. First of all, after hooking it, it blasted out of the water about five feet to give me a good look at what I had and then it headed right for the alders now in the water because of the rain.
Even though the fight continued for several minutes I figured it was going to be a losing battle. I tried walking downstream to get my line untangled out of the alders. The water was right at the top of my waders. I got an arm wet reaching under the water to free my line and the last move involved me trying to get my rod under the alders and hand it to my buddy downstream. All this time the steelhead had worked its way back into the middle of the river, but with one more beautiful jump - snap goes the line. OH WELL!!
This will be our last blog report until deer season. We now have the store closed up until November 11. It's time for the two of us to lay back and take a short break. We worked a long hard season and it's time to relax and chill out.
Thank you everyone for your support and business. We have a blast doing what we do and we certainly couldn't do it without all of you.
We will leave you with several fall pictures. Be well. Stay Happy and Enjoy the outdoors!!!
Cheers,
Mike and Monica
