What a gorgeous day to be on the river yesterday. Weather was perfect (a little windy for about an hour), the water clarity was perfect, and the river was relatively empty.
I fished 4 runs and the people I talked with were pleasant, every person I encountered was fishing in an ethical manner, and I didn't run into too many Chum. After last weekend's chumfest on another river I had seen enough of them.
I made my way to my target run at mid river and was happy to see no one there on either side. I had on a copper blade and drifted through the likely looking seams. I rarely fish the Vedder for salmon so I found I was fishing good steelhead water and not having any success.
After several drifts I noticed that there were some smaller fish rising in the slack water close to shore. I paid more attention to that area and saw a silver tail flip out of the water.
I shortened my float and drifted into the small pool. There wasn't much current there and at one point my float just stopped. I assumed that my blade had hit bottom and gave it a light tug. Instantly a bronze back left the water and spit my hook back at me.
I checked my hook and casted out again. This time my float was drifting into the pool when a gull swooped to my left. I glanced over and when I looked back my float was gone. I set the hook hard and the fight was on. A chrome fish rolled and made a few short runs before I brought it to shore. A nice hatchery buck of about 8lbs.
To end the day I moved downriver to a nice run. It's a long pool and there was 4 guys fishing when I arrived. I saw 6 Coho and several clean Chum on the beach but I assumed that might have been at first light. I took a position at the top of the run and started casting to the slack water on the far side.
Everyone around me was catching fish. A big Chum, a smaller clean chum, several chrome hatchery 'hos but nothing for me. I saw that they were using smaller blades and fishing much shorter than me (maybe 18" between float and weight in up to 12 feet of water). I shortened my float and first cast I hook a monster Chum that explodes from the water three times before jump-running hard towards the far shore.
I didn't want to spend 20 minutes fighting this fish or burn out my drag so tightened down and it snapped me off. This didn't stop him from continuing to jump and he ran right towards me. I could see my blade hanging out of his mouth and thought maybe he was bringing it back.
My day ended with an altercation with a heron that flew into my cast. Heron was released okay but not before he cut me above the eye.
Author
Topic: Chilliwack River, October 22nd 2012 (Read 2995 times)