I spent the previous day (Friday) fishing with Doug. We hit the Squamish and had an incredible day (thanks Doug for a great day). My arms were very tired from playing with those fresh chum with the fly rod. At one point, I had to put the fly rod down and go to gear. My hands were so cold that I almost threw my fly rod into the river while casting. Plus - there were so many chum in the water that I was even foul hooking fish while trying to pick up my line and cast! I noticed that Doug was consistently hitting fish with wool. He was also not foul hooking as many fish. So - time to pick up the drift rod. Doug and I hit fish on just about every second cast. Doug decided to retain two clean fish. I decided to retain this fresh chum...
As a bonus, Doug and I managed to take home some nice roe to cure up!
I got a call Friday evening from my buddy Kevin (FishFinder from the BCFR forum). He said he had a hot tip and offered for me to join him the next morning. This was an offer that I couldn't resist. To date, I had landed just one wild coho and lost a few others for the entire fall season! Kev decided to take both the gear and fly rod while I decided to stay with the gear rod (despite my "handle"). My arms were feeling a bit tired from the Squamish.
We got to the flow nice and early and there were no other anglers present. We tried casting spinners with no success. Kev's worm gear broke down, so he had to go to the fly rod. Meanwhile, I switched up and hooked and lost a nice 5 lb. chrome coho on a piece of roe. After a few more casts with no takers, I decided to try just a tiny piece of wool. The float went down and the tell tale headshakes and rolling of a coho got my heart pumping again! After a few leaps, I was able to quickly subdue this nice hatchery buck...
It turned out to be my first hatchery coho of this year - so I decided to retain this fish. About 15 minutes later, I was into a beautiful jack. Kev decided to change flies and put on an egg pattern and he landed a nice jack. The jacks were very clean as seen below...
After another 15 - 20 minutes, the float again dropped and I subdued a nice hatchery doe. Making sure to keep her in the water, I decided to release her. For the next hour and a bit, I hooked and lost a few more fish. Two of these were beautiful chrome fish that broke off my 6 lb. fluorocarbon. I decided to go up to 8 lb. fluorocarbon.
The highlight of the day came later in the morning when Kev hooked a fish that had him into backing. He managed to control the fish and quickly brought her close to the shore. I noticed it was a very nice hatchery fish. Kev landed the fish and was very pleased, as you will see why...
As a bonus, we ran into Wagonmaster, Hook, and Marco from the BC Fishing Reports Forum. It was great to see you guys out there!
The fishing slowed off by late morning and we decided to leave at noon. Unfortunately, I will not be able to get out again this weekend. I certainly can't complain though. Thanks to Kev and Doug for a great couple of days fishing!