"Blackberry Steelhead"

October 4, 2008 By: Marshall Cutchin

In Gray’s Sporting Journal, John Larison writes a golden fall tale of fly fishing for steelhead after being called by the smell of blackberries. “About when the wild blackberries drip their sweet purple honey onto the emerald leaves below, and the east winds sweep off the Cascades carrying the stoning smell over my little Willamette Valley town, we know it’s time to take a day off. Summer steelhead, in the rivers since May or June, will finally emerge from their heat-induced comas and take our dry flies.”