Anchors Away! Russian Steelie drift 1/14

I met up with Mickfish amd Mark Shimizu (Fishinshim) to do a steellhead drift near Healdsburg.  It was once again, super cold.  It was cool to see our little fleet of drop anchor yaks on the water.  Everyone has got their own angle on it, all of them worked great.  Marks was a work of art!  Mark always the jeweler, also made a mold for yak drift anchors...his was sooo smooth and shiny...kinda of a shame to drag it on the bottom...this man has skillz!

The drift was gorgeous and the water was as good as it gets on the muddy Russian...green and clear for 30+ inches of viz.  Mike got hit early on on a plug but it didn't stick.  Later I had a nice bite while boon dogging some row through a huge pool.  All in all the slow action became a side show to the great company and the beautiful drift, this is a really scenic part of the river.

Near the end we hit a long area of deep frog-water.  Having been skunked on everything else I switched to a Cleo and gave that a try.  A few minute later I got a fish, felt like a nice smallie.  I came almost straight to the yak. 

Mark was near me and asking "what is it?" 

"I don't know...sumthin small"

Then I look under my yak and their is a nice steelie w/ a Cleo in its face hiding in the shadow of my yak..YIKES!  I go for the net and it sees me an runs over to the other side of the boat and starts jumping around.  After losing so many of these I wanted it in the boat bad!  I horsed it into the net and brought it on board.  I was still hot so it was a handful on deck.  I was able to see it was clipped so I quickly bonked it.  After it was subdued I could see it was a bright runback...at 27 inches this year, this fish would have come back next year as a BRUTE.

I felt like an idiot for killing it.    Lesson learned, keep your calm  and don't get it to the boat sooo soon you can't you can't really ID what you have.  Although snakey,at least she was plenty fresh enough to be a good load in the smoker, and make a great trout entry for the AOY.

We finished the day by going downstream to Mike's home hole and fished their for a while.  We tossed gear for a while for nada. Mike place by the river is super cool, what a resource.  Mike boosted my WAF by sending me home with a bag of lemons and two bottle of Limoncello.  Leah say THANKS again...we both had some after dinner.  Then Mike made Jelly's year by passing down a cool old single shot 410...PERFECT for Jelly's turkey pursuits.  When I got home Jelly was jumping up and down and quickly put it in the empty gun case he got for xmas.  Another great NCKA day on the water.

It was so cold the rechargable in my camera tanked, but hopefully the other guys can add some pics.

Nice report! I was reading and Reading....waiting for the end of the fish report where you usually put the pics, and I was denied......wish I could of made it, NEXT TIME.  Sounds like we need to buy a couple W20's?

KB

Yep.  my old 33 is pretty beat.  Mark and Mike took pics.

Heres a few pictures,what a great drift.Thanks again Mike for your hospitality.
                     

And a few more thanks for the company guys haven't done that drift in awhile.

Beautiful trip, beautiful fish.

For us newbs who don't know all of the terminology...what is a "runback"?

A runback is a fish that has already spawned and is on its way back to the ocean.

Again.....newb question, Last one I promise (unless I come up with others  ) how can you tell it's spawned and on it's way back already?

Sean, nice fish and kudos for trying something different!

Nice post and photos.  WTG!   

Normally a spawned out fish will look beat up and super skinny, the belly will look like an empty bag or deflated. Mine was very fresh and shiny, but if you look at how snakey it is compared to the plump fish Bluefin and Kickin bass posted you'll see what I'm talking about. 

Great photos, some nice slots in the piece of the river.

I'm full of envy

Nice job fellas 

Nice FISH!!  and SWEET PICS TOO!....dude!thats gonna be a hard one to top (AOTY)  WAY to HOOK EM'

Thanks for the info Sean.  I've never targeted Steelies (never even seen one) but if ever I do get the opportunity I'd like to know the thought process (ethics/morals) that you guys go through when you decide to keep one.

Seems the ethics are way different for these fish, and a few others such as sturgeon and sometimes LBM, than they are for others where it seems that so long as you stay within the legal bounds and don't take more than you need you should be able to live with a free conscience.

Thanks again for the info and congrats on the nice catch.

--
Angel