I am sure you have heard the term running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Well that was me today and in the pouring rain for most of it.
I did not think it had rained too much last night so I headed to the Chilliwack but I guess it had rained hard up in the Valley as the water below the clay slides had cut visibility down to mere inches when I reached it 45 minutes after first light so I moved to an area I seldom fish, up high. It was raining hard so I did not fish a likely looking spot for very long but the visibility was OK. Talked to Doc and he was having a poor season like me but he said Tuesday was OK as he landed 3, one wild, one hatchery and one foul hooked. Doc is a good angler as he was a Doctor. A fly chucker comes by me with a chum salmon on. He has come down river a ways and when he gets close I tell him you have foul hooked it, thats why you can not control it, he nodes his head and promply breaks it off.
I go for a walk and pick up a few tins, one float and watch some chum salmon as well as some pinks spawning in a side channel. I never get sick of watching nature at work and I feel sorry for them as I know their days are limited. Of course they are just like all life including humans as no one lives forever, on this earth anyway.
I move on and check my watch as I want to get to the Chilliwack Hatchery in time for coffee with them. I have to hustle as it is a little past ten. I have a good visit and tell them about the meeting a number of us will be having with the FOC Community Adviser to try and solve some of the problems we have on our rivers these days. This committee met about three years ago and came up with a paper for FOC but because we did not go through the process they said they did not pay much attention I think they may this time as things have deteriorated badly since then. The hatchery will be sending a rep or two when we meet later in the month.
I borrow a holding tube from them as I decide to try to catch some cutthroat for the brood stock program. It would save me a trip home to get mine. Before I leave the hatchery I check the channel and of course there was some nice ones there, I believe they said about 3,000 have returned about half of what they expect by the end of the run. Many that come in later are dark they say so these coho salmon wait in the main river a bit before they make their final run into the hatchery.
I then stop at the cement slabs and then Tamahi Rapids for a boo with little action seen, which makes me think we have seen the main coho season now over, on the Chillliwack Vedder River system for 2009. The dirty water we have now will not help us either.
I head to the other side of the Fraser River but the sloughs are too low for much action. Once again I watch some chum and chinook salmon spawning in the gravel area of the slough.
The rain begins to pelt down so I pack up and head for the Chehalis River. I first visit the hatchery and see some nice coho in the channel, some I would like to catch.
This inspires me some so I head to the river and make a few feeble casts before a pile of bottles distract me. (by days end I have found about $20 worth)
The rain really is coming down and I am getting wet so I head to look at the sign about the newly constructed fisherman's trail. Somehow I though the trail was on the left bank but I see it is on the right bank. The trail I guess is about a mile long and part of it, a quarter of the way is along the road of the camp ground which I am glad to see is now open with no park operator. Nice to be able to drive in there and park as it cuts on the chance of break ins.
Its too wet for me to walk the trail and I notice the river is rising fast so I try a spot by the intake pipe but I find nothing once again but one chap long lining takes a chum salmon as well an angler with a spoon gets one too. Of course they are closed for retention until the first of November I believe.
I pluck a few more tins and head back across the river but not before a stop at The A &W for two burgers, for $6. All the walking around makes one hungry.
Darkness is closing in so I pass on a stop at the Fraser as I want to check the Vedder for you even though I know the rain will have washed it out. Also I believe I left my reel cover at the run in the excitement of landing the chum salmon last night.
When I arrive at the river the reel cover is there but I need a torch to see it and the river shows little visibility, in the beam of the flashlight.
A little over a ten hour day has now ended and I sort of fished 3 bodies of water with no results but the exercise was good as was the $20 earned, paid the gas and supper as well as a Tims, what could be better. Oh yes the hot bath was after such wet miserable day on the 3 flows.
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Topic: Chilliwack & Chehalis River, October 23rd 2009: Going Here There And Everywhere (Read 2096 times)