Saturday, October 24th.
After dropping Brooklyn (my girlfriend) off at the ferry I decided to swing by a local river to see if there were any new fish around. I had not been around that river since pink season. I get there and see the river is at least 2 maybe 3 feet higher than it was last time I was here. There are already 6 people fishing (3 of them were jigging). I learned that the bite had just died off and that I got there at a bad time. 3 mins later the guy at the far end of the run lands a beautiful wild coho.... not so beautiful after he was done with it, and there is no retention on this river until the 1st
I do some scouting and get back to the first run just before dark. Thinking it is too dark I try one cast. Almost at the edge my fly (a yellow and green muddler minnow) gets slammed hard. The fight is on with a coho, but he pops off after about 2 mins. That's it as I pack it in and make a choice for today (Sunday).
Sunday, October 25th.
I wake up at 7 and leave my dorm at around 7:30. On my way to the river I get stuck behind a car with a ladder hanging out of his trunk
I follow a little closer than I should anxious to get to the river before it gets too light out. There is a jetta behind me that it also following closely behind. The car finally turns out of the way and I make my way to the hole a little too fast (ok alot too fast). Well suddenly that jetta behind me has blue and red flashing lights
Great
I pull over and the officer walks up. He tells me I was going too fast (I knew that already). He then tells me I should have my N on (forgot to check for that before I left, and someone had taken it off the back of my car). He goes on to tell me that I was following too closely behind the car in front of me, and that he was going to pull the car in front of me over (for all the stuff improperly sticking out of his trunk) but decided to pull me over instead for tailgating. Ouch, 3 tickets. I give him my licence and registration and he leaves to write up the tickets. He comes back and to my surprise he only gives me a WARNING
for tailgating and drops the other 2 tickets. I thank him, and breath a sigh of relief as I easily could have been dinged at least $350 (and probably lost my licence since I’m a "New Driver"). Lesson learned, and now I was thinking, hmmm maybe this will be my lucky day.
I make it to the river by 8 am. I get there and 3 guys are already fishing. They say they have lost one coho and a few chum but they all snapped off. I fish in this spot for around 3 hours with no luck at all
So much for my lucky day…. I decide to walk downriver and cross. I get to a promising hole and tie on my new tie, the Mickey Muddler. First cast I have a follower. I keep flogging the water and have 2 more followers, including one coho that took a swipe at the fly but missed. I have not hooked a single thing and I am not too impressed. In the meantime I am watching a typical Vedder thing. Two guys constantly snagging chums off their REDDs and literally booting and footballing them back into the river. By now it is almost 1 pm and it starts pouring rain, so I decide it’s time to leave.
Mickey Muddler
I decide to try one more river, the river I was at last weekend. I arrive and see no one there, perfect. I walk down to the water and see that it has dropped since last weekend, about a foot. I start flogging the water with roll casts (there is no backcasting room). There run is about 40-50 feet wide and has a nice slot along the backside. First cast, too far and my Mickey Muddler is now hung up in the tree. I snap it off, frustrated I tie on another fly, this time a Yellow and Green Muddler (don’t have a name for it yet). The very next cast, also into the tree, augh. I tie on another new fly, a red beadhead Mickey Fin.
After last weekend I have gone down to 6.4 pnd test and a longer leader to compensate for the clear water, so hopefully this works. I get down to the middle of the run, start stripping and BOOM, huge hit and a VERY large coho starts thrashing on the top. Snap, great there goes my only chance I thought, and I only brought one of each fly to try
. I tie on another tie I made, a Mickey Finn with hourglass eyes. I work farther down the run. I am looking upriver when I get another hard hit. I start fighting it, and although it is fighting good I know it is not a coho. A nice cutty comes to hand a short time later.
My very next cast, same spot I get another hard hit. This time it’s what I want, ANOTHER coho!! It starts thrashing around and rolling, doing the typical coho thing all in the top foot of water. After about 2 mins it pops off, dang. I work to the end of the run and hit ANOTHER one! This time it comes in, finally I’ve landed my first island coho after around 8 tries, and my first coho on the fly ever landed! It’s a very nice looking fish as all of the fish here are about a 20 min walk from the ocean.
I go back to the head of the run and start working down with the same weighted Mickey Fin again. Boom another coho hits again. After a 3 or 4 min fight it starts coming in, a pig of a coho. It looks to be around 10 pounds after I get it up to the beach, but takes one more run and snaps off my fly
. I decide to tie on my Green and Yellow Muddler again. I keep working the run and hit another coho in the tailout. It goes on a huge run, another big fish. It finally stops after hitting my backing in less than 10 seconds, starts thrashing in the very end of the tailout and snaps me off, AGAIN! Frustrated I go back up to the top of the run again.
I look through my fly box. Hmmmm, not much left that I think will work. I look at another tie I made, gold bead head with yellow deer hair over orange deer hair. My logic was that a red and yellow Mickey Fin makes Orange so on this fly goes. My rule was as soon as the fish stop hitting I switch runs (this was now my 4th time working through it). I get way down to the end of the tailout and its not looking good but I really don’t want to leave so I go down farther than I normally would. My what would be last cast a HARD hit again. A spirited 5 or so min battle and I landed this BEAUTY wild doe.
After this last fish I go to start working the run again but notice a knot at the top of my leader. I go to undo it and the 20 pound test I have to do my loop to loop connections snaps off… I have no 20 pound test left and it is now 5 pm. I have been here around 3 ½ hours, and decide that 6 fish is good enough for me (7 if you include the trout lol). I head home after a great day, thinking that it could have been a lot worse, but thankfully it wasn’t and I finally figured out those pesky coho!
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Topic: Vancouver Island, October 24th & 25th 2009: Island Success (Read 3440 times)