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[CohoMan]

When I woke up, I noticed that the water level has gone up slightly overnight.

I was anticipating good things for today as yesterday was a decent day of fishing without the rain.

When we got down to the lower canal, we thought that a hockey game was about to start.

As we made our turn into exit 3 from Highway One, we noticed cars after cars making the same turn. It reminded me of the ending of the movie, "Field of dreams" where cars after cars lined up to go to the field.

The vicinity around KWB was loaded with cars parked everywhere.....people were rushing to get to their spot of choice.

I am sure Lickman, Bergman, Peach Rd and all the way up to the hatchery will be lined up with cars today.

It was still quite dark when we got down there and noticed most of the choice spots were taken. We were able grab a ticket and waited for daylight.

With morning light barely hitting the water, the guy to my left hooked a coho. After playing it for a bit, I heard the word " .....wild " and it was gently released.

The first 30 minutes. nothing much happen for us. I can see way down a number of fishermen with fish on. I think they were mostly chums with maybe a couple of cohos.

After my gizzillion casts, my float took a deep and my first coho of the day was on. After a few minutes, I too noticed the " adipose".
It seems like we are getting more wild fish this year..anyone noticed that?? Maybe it is a good thing for future runs.

For the next 3 hours, we would hook into a few chums/coho jacks here and there but no cohos. Floats continued to dip throughout the morning but the pull back resulted in nothing but floats flying back.

By now people were starting to move around. This guy came to my right and decided to fish 6 feet in 4 feet of water and snagged into a chum. During his fight his hooked popped off and flew back and hit my brand new Simms wader. I felt hook on flesh and water starting to gush in. What a "shitty" thing to have happened!!!! That was not good as I was trying hard to pull his hook out. Despite the "pinched" hook, it refused to come out. I had to force it out which made it worse.

The rain was inconsistent- at times it was heavy and sometimes nothing but we did notice that when the heavy raindrops hit the water, the bite would come on.

All in all, I managed to hook 8 cohos but the ones I landed were all wild and I lost several more. I only managed one hatchery of about 6 lbs.

Normally we fish for only 3 hours but today was such a good day of fishing that we continued until 2:00pm.

No pictures as I did not want to bring out my camera in the rain.

I hope everyone had a decent day of fishing. Except for my wader mishap, it was a decent day of fishing.

[chris gadsden]

Went to the new hot spot but took my time and got there well after daylight. After making a few casts with no takes I remembered I forgot my cell phone in the Leaf Mobile, that was bad enough but I was charging it so not to burn out the adapter I made  the 7 minute trek back to get it.

On my return my side of the run was still vacant with 3 others on the other side. With some color in the water and the slight rise I thought things would be on fire but it was not. One of the anglers on the other side broke the ice with a jack. I them miss 2 in a row, is the bite coming on? I hope so. A few casts later the Maple Drennan dips and the strike sees a coho thrashing on top of the water.

The coho does the Chilliwack twist and wraps itself in the line for a bit before freeing itself. As I get it near the shore I see it is a hatchery, nice, my first hatchery of the year. I successful beach it and the 4 to 5 pound hen is in the bag.

I fish for another hour with no success and am joined by 5 other anglers, one with a yellow rain coat. I member I did that once while starting steelhead fishing many moons ago and I took a lot of ribbing from Nick. Of course colors stick out like a sore thumb to the fish so not the best idea to wear.

I head for lunch followed by a cleanup of a gravel bar while waiting for Rodney to arrive. When they do I take he and Shane to the hot spot, will let Rodney tell the rest of the story how they did.

I wanted to fish "The Glove" for the last hour so left Rod at the hot spot."The Glove" was occupied so I fished further below it but only landed another peamouth chub there and missed a jack and it chased the bait when I reeled in but I still did not hook it. I had lots of chub bites, that, according to Rick is because the chub move out of the Sumas on the flood tide into the Canal, hence all the action on them. Rick kindly gave me a pheasant, have not had one in years, yum.

As darkness began to fall the waves of fish increased and the jump in the water levels had them on the move all day. Lets hope it does not color more overnight or it will be tougher fishing for us short floaters than it has been for many of us this season, well me anyway but I am now on the board, maybe more to come.

[troutbreath]

Chub and pheasent for din din.  way cool

[Rodney]

Pheasant chub or chubby pheasant? I think you've surpassed me on the number of peamouth chub bagged in 2012.

I normally don't fish on weekends, because weekend warriors already have enough challenges... Yeah right, because I am one of the few fortunate ones who are able to fish on weekdays. I decided to head out this afternoon as the first heavy rainfall always means pretty good fishing. Water clarity has gone down quite a bit, which means the fish are not as spooked. I wanted to get out at first light but the late night dinner outing prevented me from doing that. I phoned fishersak when I got up and he had already been fishing since 7am. He claimed that he brought a big coho in but lost it at the beach when he was trying to identify it. He blamed it on me because if I were there, I could have told him if it was a hatchery or not right away.

As I made my way out there, Shane left me a message. Apparently he had also been out since first light without any success. I convinced him to join me and Chris since the local knew where the hot spot was. We made our way out to the run at 2:00pm. The walk was bit of a maze, so I was a bit worried about coming out on my own in the dark without getting lost. The first run we looked at was ok, definitely very fishy but it looked better from the other side. The grass is always greener on the other side of the road. Chris went and explored another run. He soon asked us to join him as he thought it looked pretty nice. I thought the tailout he had chosen was a bit too shallow, but he barbed one almost right away so I guess it wasn't too shallow after all. I started with the spinner under the float while the other two drifted roe. Shane was soon into one fish when his float only dipped slightly a few times before he set the hook. It was a pretty nice hatchery marked male coho salmon. The spinner soon came off my line and time to get some pink fingers. Not that it mattered, because I couldn't find a bite for the next two hours.

My luck didn't really start until Shane and Chris departed at 4:00pm. First I missed a good take-down. The hook-set was more like a lift. Then I briefly connected with a jack. Overall the fishing was still slow, so I decided to move upstream a little bit after a few other occupants left the scene. The water looked very nice, slightly deeper with the walking speed flow, just my kind of coho water. Nina phoned before I could make a cast. I reported the dismal result. Once the conversation ended, on the second cast, the float dove down and this time I was right on it. It was a really nice take-down, unlike the tiny tugs and dips that we have been experiencing in the past few weeks due to low water level. A beautiful coho salmon exploded on the surface and I played it nicely to the beach. It was a hatchery-marked fish, approximately 6lb, just like every other fish we have seen this year. It seems like most coho salmon are around this size in 2012. I quickly dispatched it.

I was wet from the rain, had sand all over my jacket and gear, as I was in a rush to get back into fishing. The bite seemed to be on and it was. Two more drifts later, the float took another good dive. There was another solid fish at the end of the line but the tension was lost a few seconds later. Two more drifts later, another take-down! This time I lifted the rod up slight for some reason. It was another good fish, shaking its head, but it again came off a few seconds later. The bites suddenly went from hard take-downs to light dips as if they were now aware of what was going on. I only had about 30 minutes left before dark so I switched between roe, spinner and spoon, desperately trying to get another good hit. In the end, beside a few tiny trout that kept stealing my roe, the bigger coho lost interest and wanted to sleep. I walked out with another angler who just released a wild coho before dark. No photos today because I didn't bring my good camera. I wish I had, because at last light, the heavy mist blanketed the river with the fall colours on the hills in the background while an angler stood in the water was really picture perfect. Next time! I can't complain too much with one good fish in the cooler to come home with.