It was good to get out on the river again with Gwyn.
We had heard there was some sockeye schooling in the open part of the Harrison River (below the highway bridge). We had some good fishing there the first year they opened it for sockeye retention. We caught them then using both krill and ghost shrimp.
Gwyn met at my house after I got back from church and we had the Leaf Craft loaded and on the road shortly after 1:30.
Arriving at Island 22 we saw sockeye mania was in full swing with nary a parking place to be had.
After launching Leaf Craft I spotted a empty spot and drove quickly towards it but as I started to pull into it some bystanders started to yell at me, at first I thought they were Leaf fans cheering the maple leafs on the Leaf Craft and the Leaf Mobile.
All I could see was a couple of trailers with boats on them.
I rolled down the window to talk to as it turned out were Amercian visitors who were doing the shouting at me, they said they were parking their boat there which made me wonder with the shortage of parking spots if that was the correct thing to do. They said they had some repairs to do and did they ever as they had ground their prop down to just three little bumps.
The people that sell and repair props must love the Fraser's gravel bars.
Anyway I see another spot and leave them to their grief. After parking I notice a man in uniform who is trying to keep some sort of order among this mass of vehicles, trailers and sockeye seekers is escorting the boat, truck and fishers out of the parking area. I guess he agreeded with me that that was no place to leave a boat with parking at such a premium.
Gwyn by now has the LC purring away, as she is anxious as we are to see if we can find some sockeye to short float for. Even though I was sure there was to be no opening for them this year I have to admit I was pleased to hear FOC opened the Harrison so to give those that do not BB for them a chance as well. I had hoped FOC would have open the full lenght of the Harrison as quite often the sockeye will school up above the highway bridge. However the last time they opened it up higher some people were out and out jigging the sockeye. To bad a few spoiled it for us they like to work at making the sockeye bite.
I hop aboard, push off the shore and Gwyn points LC upstream towards the Harrison. As we pass the bars most are fairly crowded, mostly people BB but a few anglers are bar fishing. We also had brought our bar rods along in case we could not find the sockeye in the Harrison. As we motor up river we see numerous sockeye on, we say nothing, keeping our thoughts to ourselves hoping we will find some sockeye that will like to taste our krill and pro cured ghost shrimp.
We arrive at the Harrison and motor up past the railway bridge, Kilby and to the highway bridge. All we see is two anglers troilling, we ask them if they have seen any sockeye showing. They say all they have seen is some perch or was it shinners they said that they were catching. Gwyn and I look at each other with blank expression on that one.
It looks like we were out of luck for sockeye so head for the confluence of the Harrison and the Fraser.
On the way up we had seen a few boats fishing there and some fish showing.
We anchor and we start to see lots of pinks breaking water. These are not what we came for but if they will take our offering it will good to see the float going under but I will miss the Randog Float I lost on the Thompson a couple of weeks ago.
We just get settled in and we quickly reconize Summer is fastly fading and Fall is just around the corner as we get hit by a tremendous rain storm that has the rain drops turning the clear Harrison in to millions of tiny ringlets.
The rain pelts down for some time but finely a rainbow archs it rainbow of colours clear across the wide expanse of the mighty Fraser.
We have fished for maybe an hour and the water has been boiling with pinks but they do not seem to be in the biting mood for our bait. Anglers using spoons and flys were connecting fairly regularly.
We see 3 sturgeon break water around us, one only about 75 feet away, seals are circling, they certainly should have no trouble finding an easy meal today. A loon checks in for a look see as well with a few flocks of geese heading out to the fields for their afternoon feed in a distant corn or pea field. So much to see when out on the flow.
We are starting to get a bit dejected and I am just getting ready to suggest to Gwyn we go bar fishing when my float dips but I am to slow on the strike. "Just missed one" I tell Gwyn.
I quickly tie on a new bug and a drift or two later, float down again. This time I am right on it and the line tightens as a bright doe pink of about 4 pounds flashs it silver sides in the green hue of the Harrison.
The fish puts up a decent fight for a fish that most likely has been swimming upstream non stop for the last 3 days or so since leaving its ocean home of the last two years.
I decide that I will keep the fish so Gwyn does the netting honours. With the fish in the net Gwyn who has been using krill and getting no bites says "I need a bug too"
I pass him one and it is not long until he also has a nice bright fish on that also is gobbled up by the waiting net.
The water now is boiling with fish and a fish is showing every second. The bite is now on and we are rewarded for our previous paitence as we miss some, lose a few and bring a total of 5 to the net. Gwyn switchs back to krill and they take them now as well. Some fly fishers are connecting with pinks with one of them hooking a sockeye that I believe was foul hooked as he released it. The shouts of joy from some young anglers and their parents from a boat below was good to hear as they were having fun hooking numerous fish on the spoons they were casting.
As dusk approachs we pull our rods apart, break anchor and head back to Island 22. We were more than satisfied with all the takes and fish we were able to entice to bite, they were not the sockeye we had hoped for but seeing that float going under was all it took to make it a fun day once again to be out on one of our beautiful rivers in British Columbia.
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Topic: Float Fishing For Pinks (Read 4113 times)