I did not get as earlier a start as I hoped because of working on a fishing report and video's for you as well as e nails related to the Oct. 16 Fraser River cleanup and Alexandra Morton's the Paddle down the Fraser for October 20.
I knew the conditions would be prime after seeing how it was shaping up at dark last evening.
I finally get to the river and start at the Chum Run. It looks good and I miss what I think are good fish but they could have been smolts that were once again taking the bait off. I have never seen so many at this time of year. Maybe it bodes well for future returns to the river.
A chap I know comes along and we have a good chat as we fish talking about how good the coho salmon fishery once was, before they decreased hatchery production and they introduced Harrison Whites, are they taking over the system?
I finally decide to work down to another run that was good a few days ago. On the way I pick up my third DNE float of the season. I stop to look at another run and discover I do not have my wallet, ouch. Did I leave it at home or what? Did it fall out of my pullover when I picked up the float, darn could have washed down river then. I have a bad habit of putting it in these pullovers when I know I should not. I am without my Maple Leaf one that Rodney has a caught a cold from after finding it where I dropped it a few days ago. It has a deep front pocket, hard for anything to fall out of it. Boy I am losing as much stuff as I find these days.
Well if its at home I better get off the river, no license no fishing. As I trace my way back I hear a whistle from my friend. Right away I know he has found it, a sigh of relief. When I reach him he says it fell into the water, where I was sitting on the Chum Run log. It is soaking wet as is everything in it, but hey glad to get it back, The hot sun today will dry it out. I thanks him several times before heading to the run below. I have wasted 15 minutes or more. The sun is shinning bright so maybe there will be no bite once again today.
As I near the run I am headed too I see the lone person there with a nice bend in the pole, I quicken my step. As I reach the run I see he has a good sized chinook salmon on, he lands it, bonk.
I quickly put on a new bait, fish are rising everywhere. Opps better dry out the contents of the wallet first, the license is soaking wet as is everything else.
On the first cast the Maple Leaf DNE is down, I strike, solid and I am battling around a 15 pound chinook salmon. It fights strong. When I get it near the beach I realize I can not retain it as my license is too wet to write it down.
That is OK as there is so many fish going by there should be more to come. As I want to get back to the river I am going to cut the report short but I lose track of how many salmon I miss, loose, break off or land, I have not seen this many fish in awhile although I could not prove there was any coho salmon around them, none landed anyway. I do retain one good sized chinook jack that is a pure red fleshed fish.
It was getting hot out, as hot as the fishing, good it has dried my license and most of the other contents so I decide to go home for breakfast as I was getting hungry as the fish were today. Before I left this morning I was in such a rush I did not have breakfast.
I certainly enjoyed the outing with finally some good action, well worth waiting for, after many dry days in the books.
Guess where I am going now as I have 2 hours to fish before I have to attend the Cohen Inquiry.
Well there is always tomorrow too.