The First Steelhead
From the Pendergrass Library
In 1995 the president of the United States was Bill Clinton, the Twin Towers of New York loomed large over that city, and a gallon of gasoline would run you about $1.35. Nineteen years can seem like a lifetime ago and still pass in the blink of an eye.
I caught my first steelhead in April of that year, on my first opening day ever. The snow was deep along Fish Creek as I recall, and after landing that fish I stood alone laughing in the gray gloom of a wet and rainy day. The chrome and silver bullet went between 29- and 30-inches in length. It was a trophy, for sure, but I released the fish, gladly doing so, and still it has stayed with me ever since. I have never forgotten that fish. Ever.
That day long ago and that specific moment were joyous ones for me. That fish launched me into numerous spring pilgrimages each year since, to cold streams and boiling rivers in Douglas County to other waters in my home county. Each subsequent year since that first fish I have trudged through snow drifts higher than my waist at times, and I’ve worn through at least a dozen pairs of waders. I have driven through snowstorms and downpours in pursuit of steelhead. I have gone from a young man to an older man. And yet, that first steelhead has remained my only steelhead. Seriously, it’s the only steelhead I’ve ever caught; until this year.
To begin with, I quit carrying a camera when fishing for steelhead, after 19 years it seems like something better left at home. Plus, I thought perhaps I could trick the angling gods who look over such things, I’d fool them into thinking I was unprepared for catching a fish. I wanted them to believe I didn’t care whether I caught another, and maybe they’d slip up and let me hook one.
Our trek to the Brule River was like all the others - up Highway 63 from home and along Highway 2 to the river, and then north on towards Lake Superior. We half joked about hating steelhead, comparing their existence to that of Bigfoot, space aliens, and the Loch Ness Monster; steelheads are a myth. Who had ever actually ever seen one? Not us.
The river was high, a late-season melt and subsequent rains pushing the river to near the top of its banks. The riffles were more riffled, the deep waters were deeper, and the crescendo of rushing waters echoed through the stoic and cold pine trees. We found a spot just below a fast-running bend, where the water slowed just a bit and then opened wide. We settled in.
My drift was not unlike the gazillion other drifts I’ve made in nearly 20 years of fishing. My offering went out and away, and then stumbled along the bottom, caught in the weight of the big river. I’ve done it many, many times. I’ve caught a lot of German browns doing this, it isn’t like I am rookie. But at the end of this particular drift a steelhead was hooked.
“Got one,” I called quietly.
I have a 10-foot steelhead rod I’ve owned for a decade-and-a-half that has never felt the pull of a steelhead. The very thing it’s designed to do, it has never done. The fishing rod worked like magic in keeping up with the fight of the fish, never wavering in its duties. Jack came up to man the net.
I played the fish as she rushed about in the big current of the river, looking to escape, but in due time she reluctantly came to the net. This steelhead was fresh run; silver with a red streak running her length. It was a beautiful fish, and she went about 25 inches. But I don’t have a photograph.
After the fish was in the net my son and I hugged there on the banks of the river. We were alone in the gray gloom of a dreary wet day. I smiled through teary eyes at him, and he smiled back. Of those 19 years my son has been along for about 10 of them, he has gone from a little boy to a young man himself. But we had done it.
As this steelhead went back into the river she carried with her nearly two decades of finally realized hopes and dreams. This fish, this magically wonderful steelhead, is now more than a fish to me. How could she not be?
After all this time, after all the effort, after years and year of trying and trying, I tricked the fishing gods again. Just this once. Finally.
Darrell Pendergrass lives in Grand View.