We fished the Clearwater around the Lewiston stink-plant for a day and a half, with a a guided trip on the Grand Ronde a few miles south in WA sandwiched in the middle. The paper mill on the Clearwater sure does make one God-awful smell for miles around. We didn't land any fisn on the Clearwater, but hooked up on a few and had several more takes. We caught about 6 fish on the Ronde, all A-run, but for first steelhead on a fly rod they were all amazing. Biggest were about 25". As a real bonus, all but one steelie came on a dry - skating a bomber across the current.
If you've never fished for steelhead before and don't know the river or area, it might be worthwhile trying to get a guide. Casting and presentation are certainly different from anything I've done before and the guide made learning a lot easier. I think my trout dry-fly casting stroke on my 4 wt is now ruined for the rest of the season. The people in the area are amazingly nice. We had numerous river-side chats with locals who were more than happy to teach presentation techniques, share effective patterns and point out good water. The Clearwater sure is some pretty big water so wading pretty deep, long casts and sore arms from the heavy rods seem link the norm. It was fun to see the spey-rod users in action, and I can sure see their place having only brought 9' rods and smaller. We managed, though. The Ronde is more like the decent-sized trout water I'm used to and sure is pretty country. 6 wt - 8 wt rods seem to work there, depending on how big a fly you're tossing. A 6 wt seemed a little on the small size for the bigger drys and became a bit tiresome after a while, but seemed fine for the "traditional" steelhead wets. We also hooked fish or had takes on greenbutt skunks, perple perils, silver hiltons and wolly buggers in both rivers.
Hope this helps some. You shuld be in for a great trip and I'm jealous I can't get back there this year! LEt me know how it goes.
Kev
From: "Eric Meredith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [VFB] Steelhead Flies Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 16:05:01 -0600
Hey, I'm going steelhead fishing on the Clearwater River in Northern Idaho in about two weeks. Has anybody ever fished the Clearwater? I'm looking for some good patterns to tie up. Also could use any information on the fishing, techniques, places, etc... Eric Meredith http://fishparadise.tripod.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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