Well, the alarm went off early in the am
this morning and I was releaved that the rain had subsided
. After listening to it pound down through out the night and being witness to some of the heaviest torential down pours from the afternoon before
, I was hoping the water would up, and crossing my fingers it wasnt up too much
.
I have to be in the office at 6am anyhow, so I figured its only an hour less sleep, lets throw caution to the wind and try my luck
. It was still very dark this morning, my guess is the clowd cover delayed first light by a solid 20 minutes
. Oh well, I guess it meant I could take a little more time prepping than usual
. While I didnt go to timmy's as many board members here here often report, I did decide to sit down and tie up a few roe bags
. I have 1 small bag of roe left that has been producing very well for me, I figured that if I tied a bunch of bags up, I probably can greatly extend its life and get a few more fish outta it
. So after tieing a half dozen bags I remember how fond these early coho are of the hard ware. Thinking to myself that I don't like being unprepared, I grab a little box of spinners and spoons that I always keep handy
. After that, I grabbed the rest of my gear and was out the door.
As I walked down my drive way towards my vehicle, I was happy to see that all four tires were properly inflated and I could complete loading my vehicle and proceed to the river...did I mention I didnt go to Tim Hortons?!?
Driving along the access road to the cap hatchery, I noticed several areas along the road where sand, gravel, and other debris had been washed over from the heavy rain the day before
. I became sceptical that the river would be in a fishable conditions
. Upon arriveing at the parking lot, I was delighted to see that it was devoid of any other vehicles...indeed I was the only one there at that point
, but was that for a reason
.
I parked my car and hesitantly opened the door...and just as I suspected, I could hear the river as soon as my door cracked open
. Well, what could I do, I certainly wasn't going back to bed, so I assembled my sage 3113, gave my lucky oilers drennan a kiss for good luck and headed down to the river.
As expected, the river was way up...maybe 2-3 feet from the top of hatchery dam...it was rippen. Knowing a couple of good seems in high water like this, I headed past the cable pool to a undiclosed area down stream (the dog leg). While the water was up there too, the was a bit of a seem that had formed. While it was a little more back eddy-ish than I would have liked, I decided what the hell, lets giver a cast.
I reached into my vest and got a nice chunk of steelhead roe and gave it a cast...and nothing....I gave it another cast...and nothing...well, this went on for at least ten minutes then as I drifted down into the tail out, my float went down. Now it wasnt a plunging dive, in fact it was one of those dive where it kinda lies on its side and goes under (like you have just drifted into the shallows in a tail out and your on bottom)...actual thats exactly what happened (so I thought), so I slowly raised my rod tip to work loose the snag...well, as soon as that line went tight, I felt that unmistakable head shake, ya mon...fish on. I knew immidiately I didnt have a big coho on as I could see it was a steelhead...it was a little colored, probably a mending winter, what a beautiful creature!
With all the high water I didnt want to tire this fish out so I put as much pressure as my 8lb leader could manage (i would guess about 7.5 lbs) and subsiquently beached and gently released that fish back to the waters from where it came.
By this time it was probably 530 and I could see there were no more fish in that hole so I decided to head on into work. While it would have been nice to stop for some pancakes and sausages , I didnt want to end up being late for work so I quickly dropped by tim's for a friiter and a coffee...that and the steely sure made my morning!
Cheers
Gooey.
Author
Topic: capilano raging - but still fishable apparently June 2nd (Read 3197 times)