Better to be Lucky than Good!

[oldranger]

Below is a pic of my friend Dan after fishing the lower John Day river yesterday. The John Day river has never been planted with steelhead so the run is basically all wild fish. According to all accounts the run in the lower river is past the peak. Two weeks ago people were regularly having 12 fish days but fishing was considerably slower yesterday. Unlike salmon steelhead frequently head up rivers that they did not originate in. Sometimes heading up 20 miles or more before turning around and heading for home. Sometimes they stay in their new river to spawn. After talking to several people we calculted that the odds of catching a hatchery steelhead in this part of the John Day is roughly 50 to 1. You can keep only hatchery steelhead on the John Day. Dan caught 1 steelhead yesterday--a 27" 7# hen--hatchery bred. So in the interest in protecting the gene pool of wild fish (and some damn good eating) Dan kept his fish. Now he has to catch another 100 before he gets to keep another John Day steelhead! (of course I got skunked!)

Mike

[richlong8]

Amazing! That would be the fish of a lifetime for me.