I had the opertunity to fish with a young man today on the Hoh river, Nathan Ereth is the son of  Rick Ereth a very good friend of mine and one of my mentors in the field of steelhead fishing. Rick has taught me more than I remember about Salmon and Steelhead, I have many great memories of our time togeather fishing all of western Washington. Rick is currently a LIFER in the WDFW management team out of Montesano. Nathan and I had spoke many times in the last few seasons about fishing, steelhead and management policy or lack there of. He is hot in the footsteps of his father attending Evergreen College and has one more year to go for a degree. Nathan is a young man that will be forging the future management of our beloved Steelhead or whatever the next hot topic may be of his choosing.

The last I had seen Nathan he was in his gangly years, living with his dad and well basically running amuck. He has allways had a passion for fishing and if I remember right he caught his first steelhead on the Dickey river at the age of four or so, beat most of us to that feat by at least 10 years. His uncle had mentioned his angling prowess a few months back and I was pleasently suprised to find a fantastic angler ready for anything the rivers could bring. I refrained from coaching too much as these kids are sponges these days and we don’t want to make it too easy. As the day progressed the fish took over the NOT making it easy routine but Nathan never lost focus or intencity for that next bite. We fished Spruce creek to Minnie Petersons, the sun was out and the river on the low side, we chose this run to stay out of the Gill Net zone down river,(don’t want to open that can of worms with an Ereth) and to see how the runs would fish that low. As I had seen before the Disco Ball effect was in play and the angling was rather tough by recent standard, we did have a bite or two in shady spots but nothing heavy happened till low sun angle.

Nathan, again hitting a good slot hammerd into a nice 12 pound buck that battled well above his size, the fish was his first on a fly rod and he faught it as if he had handle the fly pole many times before. We had another good bite in the tail out then stuck a decent hen in the next run landing two for two in a short day very good for the first time fly fishing an eight weight and my JUNK. Now if I can get him to roll away form the tree just a little farther:)!