Winter steelhead for me started in November. A month where you think you are catching tail end of the coho season then your float goes down and when you set the hook you get a glimps of chrome.That’s no coho, you hooked a piece of steel. Whether you land or or not, that’s up to you.
I did get to land my first winter fish in November, but it wasn’t the first one I hooked that day. The day where the 38.5 × 19 chomped my pink wool and took me for a ride. Two nice jumps and a screaming run directly into a stick pile which wrapped up the fish and broke my leader. I know the fish’s exact size because a friend of mine caught this fish the next day and pulled out my red #2 Gamagatsu and part of a leader out of it’s mouth.
