I finally caught up with Shane Magnuson, Upper Columbia Guide Services, to check on the fishing on the upper Columbia River. He has been a busy boy this season, with lots of trips booked for the early steelhead season. He complained that the fishing was slow. I talked to him about ten in the morning and his two clients had only hooked six and landed three wild fish by then. When the fishing is like this it tells me something: the really good steelhead fishing on the upper Columbia has begun. Magnuson was fishing right in front the new Pateros Lakeshore Inn when I reached him, and as I mentioned in an earlier report, this isn’t a bad place to start your steelhead fishing day, whether in a boat or on shore. The good ol’ bobber and jig method is the way Magnuson fishes for steelhead, and with action like this there is little reason to try something different. When I get the new JetCraft I will be joining the anglers here, drifting my bobbers just off the docks, and then maybe I will try down river a ways, at the area known as The Rocks. Then there’s a few other spots I know near Pateros that hold fish, too.