Steelheading with my Abbie Jo

I started the year off fishing mostly by myself, through January and some of February. With my schedule I don't see the kids much, so I decided I'd take each one for a day of steelhead fishing, just them and me. Abbie was first. She didn't want to fish last year and with her excitement over catching a steelhead, and because she wasn't committed to a wrestling team, she was the obvious choice. We headed out early, and hour or two before daylight and headed to one of my favorite spots. We took a pile of wood on my pack frame and made a big fire, and we fished most of the day.

When we first walked up to the fishing spot, I noticed Kyle Carpenter there, a friend of mine. We went over to say hi, and he hooked a steelhead almost immediately. He gave the rod to Abbie and she landed it on his baitcast rod. My batteries were dead and in the cold the camera kept locking up, so I didn't get it filmed. It was a native, so we had to let it go. We fished with him for a little while, then decided to move to the top of the hole, where no one else was fishing.

Abbie fished by herself some, but mostly she ate the food I brought, sat by the fire and kept warm on that cold February morning (it was 13 degrees that morning when we left) and talked with me. It was one of the nicest days of fishing I've ever had, and I didn't land a fish. Together we hooked 9 and she landed 3 of them; one was a 30 inch buck that I hooked at our feet. With the two fish Kyle let her reel in, she added 2 more to her total, making it 5 landed for the day. Not too bad for a first timer!

TAGGED FISH #1

Abbie's first steelhead

TAGGED FISH #2

Abbie's 30 incher

TAGGED FISH #3

Abbie fills her tag! This video shows her landing it.

Abbie holding tagged fish #3! A limit of steelhead.

LANDING A FISH FOR KYLE ON HIS SWITCH ROD

Abbie couldn't keep this fish because it was foul hooked, so we let it go and kept fishing.