well, my day started late yesterday, arriving at the slab run on the upper river about 10:00 a.m.
Today I had restricted my arsenal to a 9 ft light line rod and baitcaster and brought nothing but some choice roe and some various blades sizes of colorado and french styles. I managed a few hookups within the hour i fished the upper, but the only coho that i got was snagged in the dorsal, a healthy clean hatchery buck which another angler gently released for me. Having re assured myself that these cohos where just not in the biting mood, I wandered down river, stopping just below the Crossing to check out a few likely slots. Success here was not to be, short floating with roe and blades produced nothing.
At about 2:00 I decided to go down to the Kieth Wislon Bridge to see if situations were as dire as some have mentioned. Pulling in to the main parking area I noticed that more than half of the dozen or more vehicles had Washington plates... hmmm. I had come to chow some sandwhiches and coffee, so left the gear in the truck. I watched for about an hour, seeing many guys longlining without floats, seemed half the guys had floats and the other half did not. Therre was a handful that were coming close to short floating and one in particular on the opposite bank managed to land a big chrome coho, hook embedded firmly in the mouth. he was using roe and his was the first fish in an hour of watching that looked like a legitimate biter.
There was room on my side of the river and I had lots of roe left so.... I decided to slip in and see what i could manage. I was rigged with a 4 1/2" foam float, 4 medium split shot, spaced 2 inches apart and a 20 inch 8# flourocarbon leader. Sliding my float to within 1 ft of my top shot, i began fishing. Within minutes the float went down and i set the hook on a large chrome coho which went ballistic in the shallow water and snapped me off. I retied with 10# flouro and sent another chunk of roe down river. After a while I hear footsteps on the gravel behind me and turned to see Chris Gadsen strolling along doing litter clean up. While chatting I noticed the float go down and set the hook on what was to be the first of many chums. In short order I had hooked and released a couple chums and was starting to attract the attention of the fellow above and below me who were having little or no success. After Chris left these 2 gentleman both were curious as to the way i had rigged up and were more than willing to change thier gear to match the way i had rigged. I shared some of my roe with them and a short time later, they were both into fish, and "well hooked by the mouth" fish to boot.
These two gents couldn't believe it and expressed thier thanks on showing them the method we refer to as shortfloating. A couple of converts.... plus I managed to hook and land 12 or 13 chums, all hooked in the mouth on procured spring roe. I didn't manage even one foul hookup.
The target species was Coho, but I had a great day today, and fishing was fun, as it should be. Good to see Chris out on patrol (bummer bout the leafs last night eh?) and it was very good to see the DFO presence on the water today both on the upper and at KWB as i got there they were just pulling out.
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Topic: consider thyself converted... a KWB report for wednesday (Read 6733 times)