Kirk and his son, Dane, came up to the Trinity to spend a day chasing those migratory rainbow trout that we all love. The weather conditions were probably nicer than you'd want for steelheading (sunny) but we still managed to hook fish and have a really good time together! Kirk used to fly fish a lot when he was younger and has decided to get back into it more, though you couldn't tell he'd taken a lot of time off because he could cast, mend, and fight fish like a pro. Dane, with only one year of fly fishing under his belt, CLEARLY has spent a lot of time fly fishing because you'd never have guessed he has only been fishing for a year! Water is starting to clear up a bit from the last rain we got, but it's still much better than gin clear, so no complaints! We hooked a few adults and a few half-pounders, so it's hard to complain about that given the typical expectations for a steelheading trip. Kirk landed a really nice wild fish and just as we were going to snap a photo in the classic "keep 'em wet" pose, it took off. Oh well... Kirk didn't care! He was just happy the fish was safely released and we got to shake hands. With the sun we didn't see as much BWO activity throughout the day which meant that the 5wt dry fly rod stayed in the rod holder all day, sadly. But there's always next time. Like every steelheader out there, I'm praying for rain! The typical pattern is rain comes and the river jumps up and gets some color and the steelhead get stupid again and the bite is good. Then, when the water drops down again and clears up, it turns into normal steelheading. So we're always just hoping and praying that we're there at the right now... sometimes you can predict it and other times you are just crossing your fingers. Next week I'm over there all week, but there's still plenty of time in February to book a trip, so hit me up at Confluence and let's gooooooooooooo!