OK, last trip to the Cowlitz river for this winter steelhead season (I think!). natetreat and I hit the water with a ton of other anglers at 7:30am and started side drifting the upper blue creek drift. We saw a few caught but it was pretty slow, so opted to run down below the Clay Banks and worked a long slot with diver and spin-n-glow/eggs. The water was a little cleaner below Blue Creek and had a nice fishey look to it. Amazingly not a fish was interested in our delishous treats. We ran up to the big bend at Blue Creek and shot across to the island and fished the slot opposite the shorebound anglers at Blue Creek. Nate and I each hooked into a fish only to have our hopes dashed as they spit the hooks. Mine came on a small corkie and eggs drift fishing into that fast slot at Blue Creek by the big bend. (see hot spot). I will say, it felt great to feel the tug of the fish and set the hook and get to call out "fish on", even if I didn't land it. We fished here until 1 or so and then ran back up to the boat launch area and pulled plugs for a bit. The water was getting pretty full of debris so they must have been dumping water. Started to rain and my thoughts drifted to the Rose Bowl so called it a day. Dang, Wisconsin lost. Oh well. This Cheesehead will have to hope third time is the charm for the Badgers. CFS was 4,900 today. PS - gave it a "2" although technically we didn't actually catch our fish, at least we got to play with them awhile!

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