By Malachi Curtis, Guest Contributor

it was a pretty normal day on the East Fork for me. A few fish here and there, but not seeing any fish until they took my flies. When I came up on a spot that I had caught a nice one the weekend before, I saw these two fish swimming right in front of me, seemingly in their own world. I wasn’t moving particularly stealthily, but they didn’t seem to mind and came with three or four feet of me.

After a few minutes, they moved upstream and I continued on with the day. I was looking for other fish displaying similar behavior but those were the only fish I saw in the open that day.

I’m not too familiar with trout spawning, but as far as I could tell by some quick Google searches the earliest you normally see trout spawn is January, whereas this video was taken on Nov. 12. I know steelhead generally spawn a bit earlier so maybe this is their genetics kicking in here.

Either way super cool sight to see, and a good sign for the future of the population.

riverboy

Malachi – what great footage. 2023 has defied many rules. I have a report of RBT trying to jump a barrier in effort to “migrate” in early fall – prompted by an artificial dam release. I am always pondering this balancing act between seasonal behaviour and opportunistic behavior. You got to witness a curious moment – whatever they were up to. Stoked for you and a teeny bit envious 🙂