Here to get my scolding...

[ChezJfrey]

Long, hard day.

Lots of wading. Lots of traipsing over rocks. Saw quite a few fish, but couldn't get any to bite. Had half a dozen, half-hearted interest on retrieve, and I tried stopping and gently jigging to get a taker...to no avail.

Finally, late afternoon, I'm doing the slight jig at the end of retrieve and a hit! Unfortunately, given my many hours of nuthin', I was only half paying attention and my hookset was just weak! I felt the fish shake, saw an electric chrome flash and it shook the hook immediately. Ugh! I was quite upset with my lapse...all that work and I blew it!

Gotta keep my head in the game! I spent a few more hours, but that was it...my one chance today...squandered.

 

[troutdude]

In the immortal words of Sir Winston Churchill...never give up, never give up; never give up!

 

[bran_man]

That's happened to us all.... Don't worry. Just remmeber to try and focus and believe that every cast you make is going to be a fish on! And one more note, when bobber/jig fishing at times, sometimes at the end of your drift and you first start to retrieve, is the time when the fish will strike for some reason (must be the swing of the jig I guess). So when I bobber and jig fish, right when I'm about to start reeling back in, I do it kinda hard and fast just in case, cause that will kinda act as a hook set for those last minute biters. Doing that has landed me quite a few fish that I don't think I would have hooked decent otherwise...

 

[ChezJfrey]

Yeah, I'm usually the king of assuming every cast will net a fish...I suppose a bit misplaced confidence, but usually keeps me on my toes. Guess the cumulative dismissal of my casts yesterday kind of got to me and I was OFF my game at that moment.

Even walked up to a point of slow moving water to find two steelhead very gently finning between two rocks. No good approach for my spoon, but looked to be perfect float/jig water. I sat down behind some rocks, took 5 minutes to rerig with a float and red/black jig. Carefully kneeled to cast and what the??? They were gone! Fish were just toying with me all day.

Still bummed I missed my chance and now I've gotta stew on it until I get back out there...

 

[bran_man]

Yup... Sounds like steelhead fishing to me!