Coastal winter steelhead 10, Matt 0 -- The clock winds down

We spent the entire afternoon and evening yesterday chasing late season, native winter steelhead on a coastal creek. The water was really low, but looked great -- that mix of gin clear runs and chalky blue chutes and pools. We had a few hours before dark to get it done -- Alex, Wild Bill and myself.

From MattStansberry

We split up, tackling different segments of stream. I went upstream to fish at the bottom of a small waterfall with my egg and nymph combo. I caught a 6 inch cutthroat, let it go.

I was absent-mindedly drifting my fly under the wash and foam, just starting to lift it up to reposition when a big steelhead came to the top, swiping at my indicator. I almost had a heart attack.

I'm pretty sure that I'm unprepared to actually hook into one of these things with my four-weight. The anticipation is killing me. I'm hoping to catch one winter steelhead on the fly this winter yet. A modest goal, but I'm running out of time.

From MattStansberry

When I went down to check on Wild Billl, he'd been drifting over a spooky steelhead in a clear run the whole time with no luck. It seemed like there were two in there -- one silvery hen and a darker buck. I saw them both, but not at the same time, so they could possibly have been the same fish under different light conditions, but I doubt it. Either way they weren't cooperating.

Alex broke his Oregon trout skunk streak, pulling in a cutthroat towards the end. We also found newts and trillium.