This past week started off red hot (view red hot steelhead article).  But it didn't take long for all the rivers to flood out again.  As of yesterday 12-26, both the Root and Milwaukee were blown out and the Oak Creek was extremely low.  I spent the afternoon walking the Oak Creek with the fly rod and missed one buck brown and heard of a few other fish on beds but overall it was extremely slow.  Christmas Day on the other hand I decided to take the boat out of McKlinley Marina and do a little trolling.  Once in front of the discharge I picked up one small winter brown trout on a Bay Rat crankbait.  While fighting that fish I noticed one other boat tied up to the discharge hooking into fish every other cast.  I decided to abandon the trolling for a little while and tied up to the wall and jigged for a little bit.  While talking to the other boat the angler in front told me most of his hits were gigantic shad and only one or two browns.  It didn't take long for me to make the decision to continue trolling.  Once I was set up again, it didn't take but 5mins to have my outside board go peeling back.  While fighting the fish I didn't think it was that big but then it decided to take my Church's Tackle Walleye board under water.  After another 6mins of fighting this fish I was able to get my board off and then the fight was on.  It took another 5mins to get the 20lb brown trout up to the back of the boat and into the net.  Needless to say I was very happy with my 16lb Sunline Mono that I put on my crankbait rods.  The outlook for this next week is only a few days of fishable water in the rivers with more rain (up to 1/2'' called for) but later in the week it looks like I'll be on ice!!!