San Francisco

We had a chance to go San Francisco again on last weekend.

Flight from BOI to SFO was delayed about 1hour after boarding.

But our daughter was happy to get the snack twice. She also became good at playing by herself.



We had a kind of trouble again.

Our rental car had overheast soon, so we had to wait about an hour till road service coming.


It was a kind of unlucky, but good experience for me.


The Japanese Style 'Lamian' was one of my fun at Bay Area.
I miss it somtimes in Boise.

I thought it was my most favorite one in my US life.





Needless to say, we never forgot to eat the Dungeness Crab. We especially my daughter loved it.

She also enjoyed to see the sea lion for a long time. She said 'I wanna come here again, dad'. I hope so, sweetie.

Spring Steelhead Season had begun

Last weekend, I visited Clearwater river first time to check the Steelhead coming. South Folk was almost iced and seemed to be impossible to fish there. So I had to go further downstream to see no ice. Finally I reached Orofino, and it took about 5.5hours from my house.

There were some Steelheader with bobbers and jigs and some of them caught Steelhead, especially using boat like right pic.

There was no flyfisherman and it was too deep for it. I had to give up...
But I could practice my new gear there, and it was more difficult than I imagined. I need a more practice to cast it.

Through my experience of last weekend, I decided to try the Little Salmon River this week. Because I saw no ice in downstream near Riggins when I passed it last week.

In the morning I felt no sign of Steelhead, so I doubted the existence of Steelhead. There was no angler also.


So I moved to the Salmon River just for change.

Though I practiced double handed rod casting again, it was still difficult. I need more time to get used to it.

I returned the Little Salmon River again around four o'clock in the evening.

I couldn't believe it when I got the strike! But I definitely identified him as the Steelhead when he jumped some times.

I was already fascinated with his beautiful color during fighting, and noticed there was no shallow to land him.




But finally I could push him on the ice of bank. He bit the egg dropper surely.

Although he was small Steelhead(56cm/22inch), it could be valuable one for me.

My Spring Steelhead season had begun undoubtedly. But I have a concern for busy day in February.

Midge Hatch

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I headed for South Folk of Boise River after four months approximately. It was a kind of anual event for me(Last Winter).

It was cloudy and so cold about 15F(-10C) in the morning. I thought it must be one of the colder fishing trip.

I could see some midge hatch at first hole, but no fish rose. So I tried nymphing, stonefly nymph and brassie dropper.

I got two whitefish by brassie. They were about 15 inch, not bad.

It was difficult to continue fishing because of its coldness. Everything got frozen easily, and I had numbed fingers. Though I did several holes, I got nothing.

At last hole, I could see some rises. It was about 15:30. So I change the rig to the dry fly system.



I got the one(18.5inch/47cm) by midge parachute. It was my pleasure to catch it by dry fly inspite of such a coldness.

Those rises continued about one hour, but I couldn't get a strike more.

Las Vegas

I had a chance to go Las Vegas by business trip. Yes, it was first visit for me.

First, I was surprised that there were many casinos even in the airport!





It was just '24/7' city.
I deposited a little money...







Fountains of Belagio was worth to see.

My advice is 'Don't be long there, if you wanna avoid wasting!'.

Imnaha & Troy

Hide & I did Steelhead searching trip in the end of last year. This 'Searching' means to go the place where we've never been.

So we picked Imnaha river as first destination.

On the way, we dropped in Wallowa Hatchery which located in the upper Wallowa river. No Steelhead reached yet.

After six hours drive, we arrived at Imnaha River(right below pic). And we found a good hole. But we couldn't feel the fish's exsistence.


Next, we headed for Troy(Grande Ronde River) as second place.

Though the drive had a little difficulty because of much snow, it was a kind of fun like explore for us. Approximately it took over two hours.

Grande Ronde River around Troy was really 'Grande'!

I felt the necessary to have the double handed rod. (It was maybe one of reasons to have bought new gear.)

As a result, we had no luck. But I enjoyed the this trip.

Now I'm thinking of next Steel trip soon, because I guess I must be busy after February...

Gear for Dreams

I thought I didn't need to have them until quite recently, because they looked like high threshould for me. But finally, I did buy them to realize some of my dreams.

Rod: 5-PIECE CL SPEY ROD 13 FT 9/10 LW, Cortland
Reel: PRECISION XC LARGE ARBOR FLY REEL #4 (9/10), Cortland
Line: Tip Taper TT-375(Sink Tip), JIM TEENY
It costed about five hundred bucks, it sounded much cheaper than Japan.

I'm looking forward to fishing on larger river like North Umqua and Deschutes.

New Year's Day

We did the New Year's Greetings each other in the morning.

After breakfast, we played KARUTA together. Our daughter did very well though it was her first one.



We went to the nearest park afternoon. We were surprised by the ice thickness of the pond.


I made a CHAN CHAN YAKI of Steelhead for one of dinner dishes. They seemed to like it.

There was hardly any special for New Year's here.