Over the Valentine's/President's Day holiday we hosted Jack, Kelly, Summer and Nolan for a weekend of steelhead fishing. Nate, Jack and Nolan are lucky guys - they've all found women who would trade chocolates, flowers and romance for sand shrimp, salmon eggs and waders!And what a weekend it was! Nolan "fish-whisperer" Banish showed his steelhead prowess and landed three fish in total, 2 hatchery steelhead and a third wild fish that had him running down river (with Nate and his net close behind) to keep it on the hook. Summer had the magic touch, too, and fought numerous fish on her fly rod, including a feisty male who finally threw his hook as he made a run up-river. Numerous other bites or bumps had us all wondering just how many fish there were in the honey-hole we found a short distance down river from our starting point on the Alsea River?
(Summer fighting a fish and another on a stringer in the shallows).
We all enjoyed a delicious Valentine's Day dinner at our local eclectic Mexican restaurant, Bombs Away Cafe, and the fun of a house full of good friends. Nolan was kind enough to share both roe (curing for future fishing trips) and fish with the rest of us. Below is the work-of-art meal that Nate prepared for me last night - "fresh Alsea River winter run steelhead with a soy-sugar demiglaze and scallions".
I believe Nate and Jack have already made a date with the river next weekend....
