Had an awesome day today fishing with Rhino. Very grateful for the ride out to the flow, and was great to meet another cool person off the forums. The trip was 5 and a bit hours long in total… and the water was sooo cold that we cut the trip a little short but we were happy with what happened anyways.
We decided to leave for around 10 am. I texted Rhino instructions on how to get to my dorm, 20 mins later he was here. Before we left I decided to look at the hydro graph to check to see the height of the river since the heavy rains last night. It had come up a reasonable amount, almost perfect. Loaded up and started the trek to the river.
Arrive to see one guy leaving the spot. I was really hoping he had not fished the run this morning as these coho are very spooky and if the water is flogged or fished with gear (bigger spoons/colorados) the fish totally turn off. We head down to the run I was fishing on Sunday. We fished this one run from about 11 until 1 pm. This whole time there were fish rising everywhere (mostly coho) but no takers, not even a cutty!
I was hoping to get into some fish soon since I made Rhino drive to come get me and drive way out here
I finally decide, lets head down to the next run to get some clean chum. I had been in this next run the week before and it was loaded with nice looking and even some chromer chum. We get down there and nothing seems to be happening. Just as I am changing my fly (about 10 casts in) Rhino hooks a fish and it takes off upriver. I finish tying on my fly, first cast, BOOM. COHO! double header
Double header shot
After this the action was insane. There were literally coho rising 3 or more at a time all around us and we were hooking fish consistently. I hooked 8 coho in total, landing 5. Rhino ended up hooking 4 landing 2, including his first ever on the fly rod (his first ever even hooked on the fly as well)! I also hooked a few chum. Just to give you an idea, there were so many coho today that we ended up even foul hooking 2 each because they were stacked so much as we were stripping in we were getting fins.
On a side note, as Rhino was tailing his first coho ever (which I might add was a very nice sized buck), I heard a pop. Turns out his fly rod broke in 2 places (right at the tip and then about a foot and a half down from the tip). We fly fished the rest of the day with it and still landed a few more coho.
Rhino's first
The gear we were using today was pretty much the same flies as yesterday, although my Christmas Tree variation absolutely slayed hooking 4 coho for me and 1 for Rhino. The yellow over orange deer hair also worked for another large fish that snapped off while I was tailing him so we missed the picture. Rhino got a nice underwater pic of another big buck I snapped off while tailing as well with the christmas tree variation in its mouth.
Big buck underwater
A nice little doe
And another nice little doe
Cool shot
Rhino has a bunch more he will add in a few days....
Hope ya enjoyed, Cheers
Dan
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Topic: Vancouver Island, October 27th 2009 (Read 955 times)