Nice fish gman and fishon.
Don't lie, those were caught on the juicy and stinky goodies in those funny looking boxes around your waists weren't they?
Good to see hardwares
also worked for you two.
Luke showed up at my place yesterday at 5:00am and we ventured out as well to take advantage of the limited good water condition. Knowing that the timing was right, we had pretty high expectations since we were able to get into almost two dozen coho salmon on October 6th 2004.
Our morning started with a surprise. While driving along the dark, foggy Chilliwack Lake Road, I saw two slow-moving shadows on the road ahead of us. I said, "What's that?" and turned on the high beams and two young black bears appeared in front of us. One must be a newborn cub while the other one looked to be a one-year old. The sighting only lasted a few seconds before both disappeared in the bush, where the mother bear probably was in. We felt lucky to have this rare sighting but were worried about their future and safety as the cars have a tendency to roam on the Chilliwack Lake Road way above the speed limit.
We began our coho hunt at a pretty secluded spot in the mid river. The river was higher than I expected, but fishable for sure. Thick fog slowly dissipated on the surface. Meanwhile, the float darted in and out of the mist at times, just waiting for it to dive. A dozen drifts had gone by, no takers yet. I decided to move a bit further up on the run, and within a couple of casts the float dive came, but a miss.
The following cast, a fish grabbed it at the end of the drift. It dove and surfaced once before falling off the hook. Chrome but rather big, it looked to be a chinook salmon. A few more misses, two people appeared behind me. "Fishing with Rod, what's going on man?", said mmmroe.
The four of us fished hard for the next two hours, but with only a few chinook salmon to show. Disappointed by the absence of coho salmon, I gave Chris a call to see if they were doing better in the lower section of the river. "Nothing", he said "We're actually on our way up to you."
"Don't do that! No fish here...", I quickly warned him.
We then decided to give another spot where Chris reckoned some coho might be sitting, so Luke and I parted with mmmroe and friend (sorry, forgot to catch your name, how rude of me).
A pink salmon at its finally stage.
We met up with Lew first, who was already observing fishermen on the flow. Chris was no where to be found, probably busy answering phone calls we thought.
He eventually showed up, and we headed to a small side channel. Lew and Chris fished on one side while we fished on the other side of this channel. Upon our arrival, I made one quick cast toward the fishy looking log jam with my spoon. It sank and fluttered, within a couple of reel turns a good take made me set the hook hard. A coho broke out on the surface.
I played it carefully as it darted downstream. It wasn't particularly big, but a fresh beauty. I gradually worked it to a slow slot where the slope is not as steep. A quick look for the adipose fin showed nothing, it was a hatchery fish!
I slid it up the beach and pushed it up a bit more with my hand. Just when I kneeled down to grab its tail, it flopped a couple of times and tumbled back into the drink! With the lure still in its mouth, I frantically got up and played the fish a few more seconds before the dreadful pop!
Shocked by what just happened, I stomped my feet and screamed while Luke gave me the "I can't believe you just did that" look. I looked across the channel, Lew was chuckling after witnessing the entire event.
Deflated, I sat down and replayed the entire thing in the head. Chris worked his way down the channel and while looking away, his float dove and a jack chinook was swimming away with his hook. Chris played it to shore with ease and landed the first fish of the day between the four of us.
After lunch with the boys, Luke and I headed to the Boulder Run area to take a look at the crowd and try out luck in the pocket waters. Luke connected with one fish on the first drift but quickly lost it. We spent the next hour or so looking for fish hiding behind rocks. Luke lost one more fish while I was only able to trigger a few salmon to chase my spoon. The current was just a bit too fast for the spoon to stay in the water longer, otherwise these chasers would have been connected. All were not lost, I managed to pick up 8 foam floats along the rocky trek.
By 3:00pm, we were starting to lose momentum yet still wanted to get those silvers. We headed to the mid river spot where I lost a coho last Thursday. I continued working with the spoon while Luke drifted with roe. After about ten minutes of trying, I hooked yet another coho, which fell off after one leap!
We decided that the higher water had made the run rather shallow, so we moved back to the side channel for the last light bite. After searching for about 10 hours, we were now quite exhausted but hopeful. On our way there, the Leaf Mobil went by. Chris was probably thinking, "These two are still at it??"
He stopped and handed me a back of chum roe that he picked up around the Tamahi area. Thanks.
We arrived at the side channel one hour before dark and found ourselves surrounded by many rising coho and no anglers in sight!
Suddenly the energy kicked in again and we were ready. I sent my spoon out and again a coho grabbed it on the first cast!
This time I played it even more carefully. It eventually came to the beach. The absence of adipose fin got me even more excited and I pushed the fish way up on dry land just to make sure.
Finally, a hatchery coho salmon around 8lb was brought on the beach, persistence (or some may call it stupidity) does pay off I guess.
Seeing how many fish the spoon had produced, Luke quickly changed to one of my spoons too. I started bleeding my fish while he sent the spoon out just a bit downstream from where my fish was caught. "Fish on!" I heard and Luke was chasing the feisty one down the channel.
He brought it in eventually and it was a hatchery female coho salmon, even larger than mine!
I slid it up the dry bank for him. He was extremely cheerful, as he should be after being blanked for over ten hours.
Silvers continued to roll on the surface. Hardwares stopped producing so I rigged the float up again. After sending a big piece of red dyed pink roe out a few times, the float dove but again I was looking elsewhere.
I only realized that a fish was on when it pulled the rod down. It was a big coho, the silver flashes appeared deep down before it popped off as well.
We worked the run for 30 more minutes before darkness creeped over us. We arrived home at 9:00pm. 16 hours, 2 coho salmon, a few exciting losses, yet another trip to be remembered.
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Topic: Vedder Oct 5 (Read 17806 times)