This past Sunday I made the trip up to the Brule River with a couple other members of the the St. Paul Fly Tiers and Fisherman's Club. We arrived on the river mid-morning to a beautiful sunny day, not the image that comes to mind when you think of steelheading. We decided to start fishing downstream of US 2 even though the whole river is now open for fishing. The first spot we stopped at had one other car in the lot. We suited up and hiked down to the path to the river, which was at good flow, but still a little off color.
The three of us started fishing our way up stream. We were using yarn flies and smaller x-legs or stoneflies. We fished a bunch of holes on one side of the river with no luck and then fished our way back to car on the other side of the river with the same results. We continued on to a several of other spots mixing up colors and sizes of the flies, it just wasn't our day. The day resulted in no fish, but it definately was not for lack of effort. We talked with several other fisherman on river who had similar reports.
So now I guess I will put away the steelheading until fall and concentrate on trout.