First fish for Dec-Feb challenge is over-qualified

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ChezJfrey
Too much adipose experience ;)

Was standing hugged up to a tree, fishing a spoon, on the start of the swing and I spy a steelhead chaser...dropped it in the cobble a little, slight bounce and the fish noses up to it, mulls a bit, then decides better and swims back to its hold. But, I see what you're up to. I know where you are. With extreme patience, counting to 60 between every cast, I try a couple more casts. Then I sit down and tie on a subtle drift rig of black corkie/black yarn...same 60 count between casts about half dozen tries. Then a peach single corkie, 60 counts between casts. Red corkie, 60 counts. Nightmare jig. Spinner. Give up.

Move down the river, various spots and an hour later, I'm back for another try at this fish. Start with the nightmare, half dozen casts. Then, outside-the-box desperation...thread a pink worm on the jig. Two casts, boom! Wild fish on!

IMAG0022.jpg
 
N
Native Fisher
NIce fish, way to go! I didn't enter this year, mostly because last year was the worst season I had and I had entered the contest, so I couldn't stand the idea of jinxing myself...
 
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ChezJfrey
Native Fisher said:
NIce fish, way to go! I didn't enter this year, mostly because last year was the worst season I had and I had entered the contest, so I couldn't stand the idea of jinxing myself...

I was wondering about whether you were in or not this year because I never saw your 31" beauty get posted :)
 
E
eugene1
Great fish, Chez!

Not sure where you are fishing but is it a summer or winter-run?

Best & congrats!
 
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ChezJfrey
eugene1 said:
Great fish, Chez!

Not sure where you are fishing but is it a summer or winter-run?

Best & congrats!

Two strikes against it being a summer. This place has no summer run and it was wild and to my knowledge, there are no wild summers in my area. Plus, it was a healthy girth, so I'm going with winter.
 
E
eugene1
Thanks for that!

Makes sense to me,

Best,

ChezJfrey said:
Two strikes against it being a summer. This place has no summer run and it was wild and to my knowledge, there are no wild summers in my area. Plus, it was a healthy girth, so I'm going with winter.
 
B
bubs
Nice.

"Outside-the-box desperation"....now that's something I can understand!
 
B
bigboy70
Another thing look at those fins no spots and still ski transparent
 
D
DrTheopolis
bigboy70 said:
Another thing look at those fins no spots and still ski transparent

Beyond the obvious fin-clips, you can theoretically tell an unclipped/misclipped hatchery from a wild by the fins. Hatchery fish generally will have damage from the hatchery -- there will be bent rays on the fins, and uneven edges where the other smolts were nipping at them in the close-quarters.

But I'm now curious where this place with no summer run is "in [your] area," that has wild winters. I know such places exist in your (same as my) area, I just can't see spending much time fishing them.
 

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