Fishing A Coastal Lake LOADED With Surplus STEELHEAD!!

I haven't done as much Steelhead fishing as usual this season, but today we are making a stop at Coffenbury lake along Oregon's north coast which was "recently" stocked with surplus hatchery steelhead. For those who are unfamiliar with "surplus steelhead" here is a quick breakdown. Surplus Steelhead are simply just extra fish that are not needed for reproduction of new fish due to the hatcheries having such a strong return. In these cases the fish may get released into local lakes where they can be caught by anglers. Only male fish are released to avoid breeding. This release is done during winter which gives the steelhead the best chance of survival into the spring months where the water will become too warm for these fish, but by that time the fish are usually caught up by anglers or have simply just died.
This turned into a fun but frustrating day of fishing for steelhead. In most cases i was able to watch steelhead swim all over the place and put on some spectacular aerial displays, but it was a struggle to get some of these fish to bite. I wasn't totally surprised though, these fish have been in here for a few weeks now and i can see that they are starting to darken up. This is usually when they become less active and less aggressive and won't expend much energy to snatch up your offering... though i did manage to get a couple on the line, i could only imagine how fun the fishing would have been had i been here a few weeks before when these fish were first released into the lake.

GEAR USED:

ROD -
Okuma SST 9'6"
https://amzn.to/3hl9UdF

REEL -
Okuma Ignite iT-40a
https://amzn.to/33WgTXm
ROD 2 -
Okuma Cascade Pro 9'8"
https://amzn.to/3BV7Y5f

Okuma Foul Weather Jacket
https://www.okumafishing.com