Today was a good day.
I know it's better with photos but I was solo.
Finally landed my first coho on the Vedder. Actually 2 of them... wild, about 5-6 lbs chrome.
I was on the Lower Vedder, arrived at about 10:00 am. Had the run to myself with 2 other fishers across the river to keep me company. Perfect.
Third cast, float disappears. Not to be negative, but I'm so familiar with being skunked since early September that I'm kind of in shock, and I react way too slow. Reel in and my roe is gone. I re-roe and drift back to the same place... float goes down and I'm ready this time ... fish on.
It kind of sits at the bottom, I see so many dark chum jumping around, I'm assuming it's one of them. "think it's a chum" I say across the river. Bring it in closer and it's silver. Wild coho. It inhaled my hook/roe very deeply. I tried my best to be gentle and quickly cut the line, but there was a bit of fumbling on my part trying to get at my scissors.
No action for a bit, moved up the run a bit to fish around where I had been standing in the water. Drifts by literally where I was standing, my float goes down and I pull. I thought I had a snag at first because I wasn't sure if it was where I was standing --- which is ankle deep --- or the drop off a foot over. My drag goes, it's a fish. Thought I had it, but the hook flies back at me. Darn.
Nothing for a half hour... are you suppose to fence post with salmon fishing or work the run?
Anyways, I move down to where I had caught a wild steelhead last season. Bench sitters are watching from across the river. First drift, I'm not paying attention because I'm looking at the people across the river. Where's my float? I pull and the rod bends. Fish on.. reel it in.. trying to figure out where to land the it. See that it's wild as I look down the steep bank. Again, hook/roe inhaled. Cut my leader.
Sweet.
Started to rain, couldn't feel my fingers. Went to Tim Horton's as i hadn't eaten all morning, and was surprised to see it was 3:30 pm. I had been fishing for 5 hours?
Didn't really want to go back out after eating and being warm, but it's a long drive from Vancouver.
Out I go to fish another run I had caught a steelhead on. It was late, so no fence posting. It felt like steelheading, not a soul on the run. Float goes down..... and this time it's ... a "toxic tiger" as my buddy like to refer to them. 10 lb gnarly male chum.. bless aggressive hearts. Thankfully, perfectly hooked on the snout... released with no fuss.
My Pautzke's roe (first time cured and used on river) held up like a champ. Very impressed with it's longevity.... and it caught fish. Short floating, good roe, sickle hooks, 8 lb Seaguar... two thumbs up. Stuff works. Kept dry, lean and mean, everything worked efficiently. Roe box on wading belt is the bomb.
Learned a lot. It was a good day.
----------------------------------------------------
On a separate note, to those experienced.
I followed Pautzke's instructions and roe has been in a jar for 3 days (going on 4). I have quite a bit of it. The roe I used today, I cut into fishable chunks, dried them on a rack skein up for 5-6 hours (while sleeping), then tossed the chunks in fresh borax (shake and bake style) and put the pieces in my roe box in fresh borax once coated.
I'm not going to freeze what I think I'll need for the remainder of the season.
My question. Since I have quite a bit of cured roe, should I:
A) cut into chunks, dry/follow above procedure first, like I did, store in borax and put in freezer? Then thaw in fridge when needed and just use.
B) put cured skeins directly in freezer in airtight container with no borax, maybe wrapped individually in saran wrap ... but no borax. And dry/follow above procedure the night before use.
C) full skein, borax, freezer... dry the night before use.
The reason I ask, is that I find once skeins have been in borax, and thawed... they get mushy very fast.
Probably being pretty anal.. but good roe is hard to come by. I'm sick of relying on the stuff they sell at the shops.. if you can get it.
Thanks in advance.
Author
Topic: Chilliwack River, October 18th 2012 (Read 4137 times)