The Main Salmon River Canyon
O’fer: In terms of fly fishing for steelhead o’fer refers to an individual who has never caught a steelhead or has not caught one in a long time.
As I do more and more research and peruse fly fishing forums and websites for information regarding fly fishing for steelhead I come across the word o’fer a lot. Often used in baseball, when say a batter goes 0 for 4 in a game or simply o’fer, it is also a word that seems to work quite well with steelhead fishing. One forum I like to check for information on how others are doing and what methods they may suggest even has an o’fer contest which has some very complicated rules that I have yet to figure out. Mostly it appears that a bunch of novice steelheaders who have never caught a steelhead or are in the midst of an agonizing dry spell see who can be the first to break their o’fer streak while a few amused onlookers pick their horse so to speak and wager the currency of fly fishermen, hand tied flies, on who they think the slump buster will be. So I knew what I was getting into when I began fly fishing for steelhead and so really it is no surprise I am officially O’FER two.
My brothers and I along with our wives took a little post holiday trip up north to New Meadows, Idaho after gorging on turkey Thursday. The girls poked around the little resort town of McCall while the boys headed up to the whitewater capital of Idaho, Riggins, to do some steelhead fishing. We didn’t catch a thing but we did all have fun. It was very cold on the river this day and I had a problem with my guides freezing up on my fly rod. It is kind of hard to cast when this happens but we got to fish some good runs, but just couldn’t coax the Steelhead to come out and play. We fished a couple places on the Little Salmon and the main Salmon Rivers. The canyons in this country are very deep so even though the sun was out all day it did not reach us much down on the river.
Until next time,
“O’fer”
The Little Salmon River
A nice little 3×3 1/8 (see the little nub of point 4 on his right side) mule deer buck we came across in the canyon.
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I’m kind of becoming obsessed over this catching a steelhead and I’m not even fishing - I’m just carrying a camera for cryin’ out loud! Lookin’ forward to our next try, now. It has to happen sooner or later - but in the meantime, we’re seein’ some pretty awesome country.