Mild Weather but Tough Fishing on the Salmon

On Wednesday I made the drive to McCall to visit my parents and do some steelheading around Riggins.  The weather forecast called for cold, wet, and windy, but lucky for me, the weather man got it wrong again, and we got sun and mild temps on the river.  Yesterday we hit the little river, in hopes of getting my dad his first steelhead.  The river had gone up about about 60 cfs and leveled off, which looked prime, but it fished harder than usual.  We fished all day without a grab, but I managed to pick up one small hatchery buck at the end of the day, which I released before the camera came out.  My dad didn't get a steelie, but he did pick up a nice Bull Trout, which showed glimpses of steelhead-ness before we got a good look at it.

Today we got an early start and did about an eight mile float.  Realistically, we probably shouldn't have fished.  With about a foot and a half of visibility, the water looked a lot like a Louisiana noodling pond, but we gave it hell anyway.  We swung about five runs and nymphed in between.  We saw no signs of life until the last run.  Ian fished down in front of me and after about 20 minutes saw a fish roll at the bottom of the run.  Then he saw another roll.  After I swung through about half of the run, I went back to the boat and changed flies.  I made a few casts towards the bottom of the run and watched a big fish jump over the top of my sink tip about five feet from my leader.  This led to furious spey casting, fly changing, and fish cursing.  At one point I lost my mind and put on a skater.  I was prepared to transform in to a legend, by catching a giant February steelhead on a dry fly.  However that didn't happen.  We finally gave up and rowed to the take out, before it got dark.  We ended the day grab-less, but I know where to go next time.  Looks like I'm going to be Challis bound soon to try to get my fish on the swing.