I met a few buddies at around 3am - sandwiches made by my wife at 2am in hand - and we began the 3.5 hour journey west through beautiful country, rolling hills, and farm lands... in the dark. The whole way over, through some snoring, we discussed where to start. The upper? The lower? How about that creek? What if the water is too high? What if its too crowded?
These are typical questions for this river. We decided to fish the very popular upper and, when we arrived, there was only two cars already there. Thats a good sign.
We staggered down the bank and through the woods to get to the stream, which was flowing high but crystal clear. As soon as we got there, I began showing a friend who hadn't ever fished this way before the routine. Flip, drift, flip, drift. Monotonous, but it works. On his second flip during the lesson, a fish took the fly and came straight out of the water. A decent male King, hooked in the corner of the mouth. The shock on my buddies face was pretty funny, as were the whoops and hollers from the guys down stream of us. There might be fish in the river.
Not 10 minutes later, we had our first fish. Our "expert" on this particular river gave us an idea about what we'd be in for for the day.
King Salmon. Lots of them. Fighting hard, pretty fresh from the lake, and taking flies.
I fought several over the next few hours, failing to keep them out of the heavy current and either breaking them off or pulling the hook. Some weren't fair hooked so those were typically let go intentionally. I had one slam into my leg - leaving a fair sized bruise. There might be fish in the river.
The hookups slowed, we were getting hungry, and it was time to think about our next spot. The new guy and I headed up stream to see how things were going for people up there and to wait for the other two, that decided to head down to see if another spot was open. At this point, the bank was busy and lined with anglers.
When we didn't hear from anyone for 30 minutes, I headed down to see what was going on. Our group had secured the hot spot and had already landed two fish. I hopped right in and hooked up several times in several casts. This was getting a little ridiculous.
It went on like this for the rest of the afternoon. Everyone had hooked fish and I was in the process of landing mine. It was time to get the new guy a fish. We began hooking fish and handing him our rods. After 20 fish, every one of them broken off or lost, we finally gave up. New guy was exhausted, we were all starting to fall asleep, and we still had the 3.5 hour drive home.
I slept like a baby. Snored. Was promptly made fun of when I woke up. What a day.
Its hard to put it into words, especially since I'm not the most witty writer out there, but hopefully you'll get it. Big fish, heavy current, light rods, tons of fun.
