C
ChezJfrey
0
Have given up summer steelhead and will wait a month or two for winter. Also, took a brief stab at coho on the Sandy, but word is that local rivers look out-of-sorts given the recent rain. Planned to fish yesterday, and decided to target chinook on the Wilson. Never done it, but supposedly this is a good time of year for that river. Water was a bit chalky, quite a few leaves and small debris getting caught up nearly ever other cast, maybe 2 ft. visibility and height looked good. I only had one rod suitable for chinook and I had it rigged for float. Hit a few areas with a float setup, with nothing going, then I spoke to dozer in the afternoon and he and a buddy were down by Mills. Having never been to Mills Bridge, I brought my float rig down, but the flows in that area had me thinking float was the wrong approach there.
Didn't feel like taking the time to re-rig and I had with me my only other option, which was my steelhead spinning rig for tossing hardware. Might have been a mistake because within 10 minutes with a spinner, hooked a strong, somewhat weighty fish...in the beginning it immediately leaped (had me fooled into thinking maybe something other than a salmon at first), then ran into the current and hunkered down where I couldn't get it to budge; not enough backbone or high enough test! Seemed like it took me about 10 minutes to make any progress on it, LOL. Got a couple more nice leaps from that fish before getting it to the bank.
Anyway, found it to be a very pretty native Coho and sent it on its way. Oh, and while fighting the fish, OSP walked down and this was the first time I've had my license checked, so encouraging to know the patrols are out there.
Had another hit not too long after, but missed it other than seeing the big flash right as I struck out on the take. Also got pecked by what I'm guessing was a trout, but it didn't stick on the #4 spinner.
This weekend that river will likely be pounded given conditions, but forecast looks excellent and there are fish...saw several rolling yesterday and other people on the river have also indicated fish are being caught.
Didn't feel like taking the time to re-rig and I had with me my only other option, which was my steelhead spinning rig for tossing hardware. Might have been a mistake because within 10 minutes with a spinner, hooked a strong, somewhat weighty fish...in the beginning it immediately leaped (had me fooled into thinking maybe something other than a salmon at first), then ran into the current and hunkered down where I couldn't get it to budge; not enough backbone or high enough test! Seemed like it took me about 10 minutes to make any progress on it, LOL. Got a couple more nice leaps from that fish before getting it to the bank.
Anyway, found it to be a very pretty native Coho and sent it on its way. Oh, and while fighting the fish, OSP walked down and this was the first time I've had my license checked, so encouraging to know the patrols are out there.
Had another hit not too long after, but missed it other than seeing the big flash right as I struck out on the take. Also got pecked by what I'm guessing was a trout, but it didn't stick on the #4 spinner.
This weekend that river will likely be pounded given conditions, but forecast looks excellent and there are fish...saw several rolling yesterday and other people on the river have also indicated fish are being caught.
Are you going to go back into spinner production now?
