Breaking in the Imperial

With the Imperial in hand I had been wanting to put some river time behind her.  Summer isn't the best time for a die hard Great Lakes Steelheader to get a new toy but here on the West Side of MI there always seems to be some options.  Armed with a couple of tips from fellow bloggers indicating the Skams were in the river I managed to slip down  this afternoon for a couple hours.  The trip intentions were two fold.  First off I was wanting to put some river time on the new Imperial and maybe capture a few images of her in action.

 Secondly I was hoping to pull a rabbit out of a hat and find one of those Skamania to tangle with.  My confidence really wasn't all that high.  The fish seemed to enter the river late last week and the high temps and full sun of the day wasn't going to work in my favour.  Nonetheless there are always fish to be had down below the coffer and I was determined to spin the new toy.

The game plan was simple.  I was going to wet wade the river and pick away at the fast water and seams below the coffer and work my way down to the buckets and troughs behind the gravel pile-ups to the first bend.  As expected the reel performed flawlessly and my choice of a rear mounted clicker option couldn't have been better.  The clicker is rock solid and operation is very intuitive. 

The center nut proved true to it's function and a much needed reel flush was as simple as could be.   The reel is a runner and will certainly do me proud when the runs start this fall.  I didn't manage to find that elusive Skammie but I did find everything else under the sun from Browns, Rainbows, Small Mouth, Red Horse Suckers, and even a catfish.

 It was time well spent on the river and nice to put the new toy through the paces.