River Fishing

Friday I got up early... actually I never went to bed. My friend Larry invited to take me steel head fishing on the Cowlitz river. The Cowlitz is about an hour and a hlf from me. So we wanted to be fishing in the dark by 5 am. We were. I haven't really done a lot of river fishing, so this is always a treat for me. Larry was kind enough to supply all the gear, although I do own a nice set of chest waders. It was 31 degrees when we started, the weather was nice and the river low!
One of the guys with us got a fish on on his first cast. His drag on his reel was to tight and the line eventually broke.
At 6:50 I had my first strike (at least one that I knew about) and yelled fish on!
This was a nice steel head! She took off, leaped from the river a couple of times and headed down stream peeling line from the reel. I quickly, or not so quickly began working my way down river and trying to retrieve line as I went. The rocks are slippery and the current is fast moving.
Eventually I wore the fish out and he was netted by one of our party. She was about 10 pounds or so!
Later I caught another one and lost a nice one as well. In all we landed five and lost five. A really productive day!