Last Ditch Effort

Between cold weather, low water flows, work and the holidays I took it upon myself to make one last ditch effort to find some quasi-anadromous fish before looking wrapping rods and tying flies in the basement during the cold winter months to come.  I called my buddy CA and he said he'd join me.  We drove the 2 hours to an unnamed trib of Lake Michigan, pulled out the two handers and started swinging deep and slow.  He put me on a hot run, (this happens to be a stream he guides on) and I landed a decent brown within the first 10 minutes.  Only shortly thereafter, a big tug came and a thick steelhead boiled downstream.  After a headshaking, rod bending fight I released a nice buck steelhead.  We continued through the day and alternated between warming our fingers and casting.  CA teased up a pair of Coho that were getting toward the end of their spawning run before we called it a day.  Successful and happy, I dried my fingerless wool gloves on the dash as I tried to stay awake and between the lines on the 2 hour drive home...