Sure enough, I had a hard take and was soon battling a second Snake River steelie. My fish came unbuttoned. Nick managed to land his. We made six more passes through the ice beach run hooking five more fish, all between five and eight pounds. Two of the fish were natives.
Darkness comes like a thief in the canyon.
Mindful of this phenomena, we decided to get out while we had enough light to safely navigate the downstream rapids. That night at the motel we all were babbling about our great trip. We lost count of how many steelhead were hooked, but the total was certainly more than twenty. Bill was raving about his day on the Grand Ronde. He told us he went fishless for two hours then hooked five fish on six casts once the water warmed up a bit in the afternoon.