After
Tuesday brief success and today's forecasted rain, I decided to make another go on the Chilliwack River this week to test my luck. Coho season always means lack of sleep. Once all tasks were taken care of by 1:30am, it was off to a short sleep before waking up at 4:30am.
Today I brought Luke along with me. Since some fantastic coho days a few years ago, Luke has not been fishing much. It didn't take much effort to convince him to come along after showing him some of the photos from Tuesday.
We arrived at our spot at 6:30am, there was almost enough light to fish. I phoned Chris, who apparently was enjoying his muffin once again. "Isn't it first light already?", I asked.
Luke brought out his chum roe from two years ago, which was the only bait he had. I took a look at it, the colour and texture looked great. I sniffed it and quickly backed away.
"You're going to catch fish with that? There is plenty of roe in my box if needed.", I said.
6:40am, we waded out into the water. A big piece of juicy pink salmon roe was sent out and a quick float dive on the second cast resulted in the first hook-up of the day! A spring jack it seemed, as it dove and held its ground. A minute went by, it slowly swam upstream toward me. The silver body surfaced and the sudden dreadful pop woke me up.
Chris arrived minutes later. "If you were here at first light, you could have been tailing my fish.", I joked.
A big splash made up look upstream. Luke was now into a fish, with two year old chum roe!
It seemed like he has not lost his touch after two off-seasons. A chrome jack spring was landed minutes later. Luke then spent a good five minute bonking and bleeding his fish. "Hurry up! The bite is on!", we urged him. He then started building a weir for his fish, but there was no current in the shallows!
Chris and I had a good chuckle, while no floats were buried.
Finally, Luke casually made his way back in the water. A few minutes later, he was once again into another fish!
Once again, he brought it in quickly. Another jack spring it was, but slightly more coloured so he let it go.
I then hooked another one, which once again dove in front of me before popping off.
A few more jack springs around us were hooked, a few coho salmon were also landed. Luke hooked and lost one more fish before we decided to move on as the crowd was now getting too intimate for my liking.
Enjoying breakfast while we fished.
We decided to give the spot where we pulled out three coho on Tuesday a try, but it was not producing this morning. With the fishing slowing down, I pulled out the video camera and worked on the underwater footages of pink salmon spawning ground.
Nature documentary filmmaker at work.
After our traditional visit to Cookies Grill (thanks for breakfast Chris
), Luke and I decided to head to mid river. We arrived at one of our usual haunts and were delighted to find the entire run void of anglers. The run has changed since last year, but a new slot appeared to be holding plenty of fish. A few very chrome large coho salmon leaped at times, which motivated us. We missed a few quick takes, which we thought were underwater branches. Unsure, I let the float sank some more before setting the hook at one point, which turned out to be another jack spring. When I landed and released the coloured fish, Luke managed to connect with one as well. His fish was much nicer, so he decided to keep his second fish of the day. My second jack spring came soon after, the bite seemed to be on.
After missing more hits and still seeing coho salmon leaping, I switched to one of my spoons and covered the entire slot from top to bottom. The systematic tactic paid off, as a large bright coho salmon grabbed it hard. I set the hook, the silver bullet exploded on the surface. "COHO!", I yelled to gain Luke's attention. The fish proceeded to skip across the run at lightning speed. The typical tail dance made me nervous as fish could be lost so easy under such circumstances. I carefully walked backward and kept the line tight while Luke awaited at shore. This fish was now very close to us, it looked to be over 10lb. A quick glance while it surfaced confirmed that it was a wild fish. I wanted a photo with it at least. It darted out as its belly rubbed shallow rocks. I took my time, brought it closer again. Just when it was about to reach my hands, the dreadful pop took place once again. I screamed, Luke laughed, the fish sat still in the shallow for a few seconds before swimming away slowly.
With the rain coming down hard, we decided to give the run a rest and explore some rapids before ending the trip. What a bad idea that was. We were already tired. I walked, Luke followed. I walked some more, Luke didn't stop me. By the time I walked past three runs, we were now 1km away from our starting point.
To top it off, we found no good spots. We decided to hike and called it a day at 5:00pm. That's fishing for you.
We were completely exhausted by the time we reached our car, but excited that we found some good fish today.
Today's resultLuke hooked four jack springs, landed three.
I hooked four jack springs, landed two, hooked one coho, landed zero.
Chris? He was not so lucky this morning, but got his coho fix tonight.
Water clarity excellent, water level remained the same while rain fell. Good luck to all who are going this weekend.
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Topic: Chilliwack River September 27th, 2007: Skywalker strikes back! (Read 3888 times)