A little late to the post but what the hey !!!! A friend and myself were at the river's edge at 6:20 AM on Friday, a beautiful morning and the air dry and clear. We were fishing around the On The Way area and once the light started to wake up we started fishing our Xmas treats to our special fishy friends.
I was happy to notice that visibility was better than I expected, about 18" but the flow was a tad faster than I like and I proceeded to move around to try and find some slacker water. While I dilly and dallied my friend caught his first fish a wild coho that blinded me with its brightness, but none the less was safely released.
My turn next as the Chum decided I had the perfect breakfast food on my line. One, two and then three, fun, fast and all set free. My friend had cooled down since his coho adventure and he could'nt figure out why so he switched to a shrimp and within 3 casts he screams Fish Onnnnn !!!!!! Woohoooo, I scream and put my rod down to help him. This fish is definitely not a spring the way it was darting around and I said, "It could be a steeley."
My friend worked it in carefully only to have Mrs. I Want To Be Free scream his line out again and again. I was getting impatient because we still hadn't had a chance to totally identify it but one thing we knew, it was either a steeley or a coho and a big fat one at that. We were both smiling like kids on Christmas morning and awaiting to see what we would get. Then just like that she was gone. He just said, "She's gone." And I screamed, "Whaaat, Nooooo !!!!" So disheartening but thats fishing.
I decided to try my luck using some shrimp that I had brought and over the course of an hour I hadn't caught anything but I did get a couple of nice bites which kept me using it. My friend as well was still using shrimp but except for the occasional nibble no fish on. I finally switched back to my ole stand-by, cured spring roe and it wasn't long before my rod was bent and a smile was once again on my little face. It turned out to be another chum which I kept for the smoker and her lovely eggs.
Well to make a long story short or a short story shorter we fished till noon and caught between us about 7 or 8 chum, 2 wild coho, one each and my friend was the lucky winner catching the only hatchery coho, a nice buck about 6 lbs. A very enjoyable day with very few people out, we only saw 5 other fishermen all morning. But getting up at 4:30 AM does wear you out and by noon we were back in our vehicles and on our way home. I wish everyone a Great weekend and remember to play safe out there.
Good Fishing All !!!