It's a record-breaking year for steelhead, but where are they?

We just got done fishing four days on the Salmon River near Riggins and fishing was really slow. A Fish and Game person surveying anglers from Hammer Creek to Lucile reported surprisingly slow fishing over the weekend.

Fish and Game suspects the fish are still stacked up at the mouth of the Salmon River and large numbers still haven't made their way up the river. Last week 267,557 steelhead had made their way over Lower Granite Dam, the last dam before they reach Idaho. The same time last year there was only 147,512. The 10-year average at that time was 133,997.

We always try to guess when the run will be gangbusters going through the Riggins area and take our steelheading vacation in mid-October. Well, we didn't hit it this year. Some guides believe when I hit the river, the fishing automatically goes sour. They don't like to see my drift boat on the river.

This was the most crowded I've seen the river on weekdays in my 29 years of steelheading. Last Thursday and Friday boats were stacked up in major holes but there wasn't much catching going on. When we talked to a Fish and Game person doing a survey one day last week he had checked anglers who reported only one kept steelhead and four wild fish caught and released from Hammer Creek up to Slate Creek.

That's slow fishing.

We did manage to hook into four fish but lost them. We also had several hits. Blue seemed to be the best color. We were using Hotshots and Hot 'n' Tots.

Good luck fishing. Where are the fish?

P.S. If you're hanging around Riggins fishing and get hungry, try out the River Rock Cafe on U.S. 95 at the south end of town. I had one of the calzones and it was great. The pizza looked good, too.