The first trip I spent two days on the river and got a hotel for the first night. I started off at first light and quickly hooked into a fish...or so I thought! It turned out I had hooked into a bunch of gear that was stuck to a fish from a float guy...I landed the fish got him untangled and sorted out and let him go on his way. Shortly after I hooked another nice fish and landed it for a quick picture...this was the only fish that was brought to hand over the two days unfortunately, the rest were long distance releases, snapped hooks, line or in one case a snapped rod.
Shortly after lunch time on the first day I hooked into a really meaty male that was not to happy. I had him on for about 15 minutes at which point I heard a faint sound almost like ice fracturing and I knew a broken rod was in my imminent future. Sure enough 45 seconds later my 8wt Reddington Pursuit blew up, I grabbed the leader and tried to land the fish but ended up breaking him off.
Off to the closest SAIL I went...I ended up finding a WICKED deal, a 10 foot 8wt loop Evotec on sale for $269, marked down from $579, and I think the MRSP was even more. With this rod I got back on the water and while I hooked a few more I did not land anymore.
On the second day I started off at sun rise again and within the first 45 minutes had hooked into and fought a good 4 fish none of them landed. I hooked a few more in the afternoon but no luck in landing anything. I met up with a gentleman and his girl fishing, he was trying to get her hooked into her first salmon on the fly. I passed him a few flies that had been working and crossed back to the other side of the river and continued on. Well don't you know a while later she managed to hook up with her first salmon on the fly...on a pattern I tied! I must say that was the catch of the trip and brought a huge smile to her face as well as mine.
As always with salmon fishing a big part is weather conditions, water levels (rain) and if they are currently running or not. I caught the very tail end of a huge push of king and coho salmon and was fishing to salmon that had pooled up and were slowly making their way up. On top of that they had been hammered and harassed by a lot of gear, float and fly fishermen...I was not surprised that the most action happened right in the morning after they had the night to rest and mellow out. Even with only one fish brought to hand it was a great experience and as always I learned a lot.
