... Or maybe the "Carp" of PNW Salmon; because they eat flies and fight hard, even though they are stinky and inedible.
Anyway, with two tuna trips canceled due to weather and a full week off, I switched to plan B: Fall chinook and coho.
This turned out to be "dark chinook week", mostly Tule fish, which I have to admit they are loads of fun. I will also post this in the Trip Reports but thought it also belonged here as a reference to, what I think, is a highly under-rated fly rod fish if you just want some string pulled.
Day One: Guided trip to Drano Lake for URB chinook. Fun day with a great guide that I hope to fish with more. Fish were being caught but clearly things are winding down. We boated 2 and I kept one for the smoker. Both were URB chinook, but in this case UR-"Bronze". Still OK smoker grade. A Tule that color would be inedible. No fish pics but did see a nice CR Gorge sunrise. "Drano Lake", awful name for what is a beautiful, scenic place.
Day Two: Banking it on a SWW river for chinook and coho. Hung flies on a seam into a deep pool trying for a chinook but no luck.
Also swung flies in a shallow run past a few pods of migrating coho but no takers. Nice spot though (yes, I'm a sucker for pretty flowers).
Day Three: Switched to a more familiar river when the rain finally bumped the flow. Thinking this should have put the chinook on the move, and hopefully some coho. The latter being the main target since they would be in premium chrome condition. Chinook not so much being a Tule stock hatchery, but a few URB chinook are sometimes mixed in. Time to hit pocket water:
Sure enough though, there was a steady parade of less than prime chinook on the move. So many in fact, when I first arrived at a favorite pocket water spot, I rescued 2 that were stuck in a shallow bucket. Tailed each by hand and lifted them over the lip. Not sure that put me "on the board" but technically that was two fish to hand before I even wet a line
.
This plunge pool was stuffed with dozens of chinook:
Took me a while to work out the best tactic using the 12wt with a floater. Finally settled on a straight 9' leader of 20# FC. Either with weighted flies, or unweighted with a single #3 shot 2' above the fly. Pitch into the foam, complete slack for a few seconds, then gently lift and high stick drift into a slow swing mid pool into the tailout. Most of my takes (that I was aware of) were as the fly was transitioning from dead drift to swing. I even saw one happen as it rose out of a bucket to grab the fly mid-water column. This was a snaggy spot so keeping the fly above the fish was critical to avoid getting hung on the rocks or fish.
This was a great day to experiment with patterns. I started with larger, flashier stuff with coho in mind, but finally had success after switching to smaller, brighter, "nymphy" stuff in pink, orange, and chartreuse.
Lost a bunch due to pulled hooks, likely due to the hyper-cautious hooksets. Definitely not the hooks since I was using a lot of flies tied on the same ones I use for tuna. Tough to get the phone out while fighting fish in a spot like this, but did get one fish pic on day three. Orange comets are never a bad idea with chinook:
Day Four: Went back to the same spot hoping coho, and maybe some fresher (relatively speaking) chinook were moving through. Other than a couple fleeting glimpses of smaller brighter fish, no coho were hooked. There were still dark chinook present, but not nearly as stacked as the day before. Fortunately the chinook that were moving through tended to be more aggressive, and I'd say "brighter" but really just less dark. Ended up going 3 for 7, maybe 10+ counting the "oh shit that's a fish with my fly in it's snout... damn!" Had a helluva fight with a 25-ish pound buck that was built and colored different than the greenish/bronzy Tules. That fish was deeper bodied, and had reddish coloration similar to the URB's we caught at Drano. Doubt I would have bonked it, but the hook popped just as I was sliding him through a maze of boulders into the shallows. Tried getting some video of that fight, but juggling a cell phone and a 12wt with a large chinook attached isn't really an option:
Same scenario popping off another fish in the low teens. Unfortunately it was borderline "bright", but likely a Tule and would've cut pale orange. Again, had to settle for a single dark Tule porn shot for the day:
Trip Summary: Tule Chinook salvaged my week off. They can be as lock-jawed as any salmon, but can be surprisingly snappy on a fresh river and a cloudy, rainy day. Was really good for me to get my aging, overweight carcass back onto a river where I had to do some serious rock-hopping. I've lost about 30# but the last two days made it abundantly clear I have at least another 30 to go. Good to know that I can still fish spots like this, but only with extreme care. Use it or lose it!
Foot notes: Re-confirmed that chinook like green. Caught fish on pink, orange, and green (chartreuse). Not sure why I don't have confidence green, but it seemed to work better mid-day than pink or orange. I probably missed a lot of takes due to taking extreme care not to foul fish... which I did, but managed to keep the fair hook ratio on the plus side. If I had the last 2 days to do over I'd have tied a bunch on circle hooks. It's still possible to foul on a fin or tail with circles, but far, far less likely, and using them eliminates having to set the hook. Stupid easy, just mindlessly swing or dead drift until you have a fish on.
BOTTOM LINE: If you live near a river with a hatchery chinook run, don't turn your nose up if they are Tule stock fish. They will definitely take swung flies in deeper runs and pools, if you can find one with undisturbed fish. IMO, your best bet is to hit some pocket water after a good rain. Doesn't need to be a "special" spot. These fish aren't taking an Uber from pool-to-pool like the average salmon fisherman seems to think. ANY, bouldery spots with whitewater, that will slow moving fish long enough to put a fly in their face is good. Early or later in the day is better, but they will move all day long if the river is fresh and the weather wet and cloudy. If no fish are present, find a comfortable rock, have a snack, smoke a cigar, take some pics, whatever, just be ready and keep watch. They will show up.
Anyway, with two tuna trips canceled due to weather and a full week off, I switched to plan B: Fall chinook and coho.
This turned out to be "dark chinook week", mostly Tule fish, which I have to admit they are loads of fun. I will also post this in the Trip Reports but thought it also belonged here as a reference to, what I think, is a highly under-rated fly rod fish if you just want some string pulled.
Day One: Guided trip to Drano Lake for URB chinook. Fun day with a great guide that I hope to fish with more. Fish were being caught but clearly things are winding down. We boated 2 and I kept one for the smoker. Both were URB chinook, but in this case UR-"Bronze". Still OK smoker grade. A Tule that color would be inedible. No fish pics but did see a nice CR Gorge sunrise. "Drano Lake", awful name for what is a beautiful, scenic place.
Day Two: Banking it on a SWW river for chinook and coho. Hung flies on a seam into a deep pool trying for a chinook but no luck.
Also swung flies in a shallow run past a few pods of migrating coho but no takers. Nice spot though (yes, I'm a sucker for pretty flowers).
Day Three: Switched to a more familiar river when the rain finally bumped the flow. Thinking this should have put the chinook on the move, and hopefully some coho. The latter being the main target since they would be in premium chrome condition. Chinook not so much being a Tule stock hatchery, but a few URB chinook are sometimes mixed in. Time to hit pocket water:
Sure enough though, there was a steady parade of less than prime chinook on the move. So many in fact, when I first arrived at a favorite pocket water spot, I rescued 2 that were stuck in a shallow bucket. Tailed each by hand and lifted them over the lip. Not sure that put me "on the board" but technically that was two fish to hand before I even wet a line
.This plunge pool was stuffed with dozens of chinook:
Took me a while to work out the best tactic using the 12wt with a floater. Finally settled on a straight 9' leader of 20# FC. Either with weighted flies, or unweighted with a single #3 shot 2' above the fly. Pitch into the foam, complete slack for a few seconds, then gently lift and high stick drift into a slow swing mid pool into the tailout. Most of my takes (that I was aware of) were as the fly was transitioning from dead drift to swing. I even saw one happen as it rose out of a bucket to grab the fly mid-water column. This was a snaggy spot so keeping the fly above the fish was critical to avoid getting hung on the rocks or fish.
This was a great day to experiment with patterns. I started with larger, flashier stuff with coho in mind, but finally had success after switching to smaller, brighter, "nymphy" stuff in pink, orange, and chartreuse.
Lost a bunch due to pulled hooks, likely due to the hyper-cautious hooksets. Definitely not the hooks since I was using a lot of flies tied on the same ones I use for tuna. Tough to get the phone out while fighting fish in a spot like this, but did get one fish pic on day three. Orange comets are never a bad idea with chinook:
Day Four: Went back to the same spot hoping coho, and maybe some fresher (relatively speaking) chinook were moving through. Other than a couple fleeting glimpses of smaller brighter fish, no coho were hooked. There were still dark chinook present, but not nearly as stacked as the day before. Fortunately the chinook that were moving through tended to be more aggressive, and I'd say "brighter" but really just less dark. Ended up going 3 for 7, maybe 10+ counting the "oh shit that's a fish with my fly in it's snout... damn!" Had a helluva fight with a 25-ish pound buck that was built and colored different than the greenish/bronzy Tules. That fish was deeper bodied, and had reddish coloration similar to the URB's we caught at Drano. Doubt I would have bonked it, but the hook popped just as I was sliding him through a maze of boulders into the shallows. Tried getting some video of that fight, but juggling a cell phone and a 12wt with a large chinook attached isn't really an option:
Same scenario popping off another fish in the low teens. Unfortunately it was borderline "bright", but likely a Tule and would've cut pale orange. Again, had to settle for a single dark Tule porn shot for the day:
Trip Summary: Tule Chinook salvaged my week off. They can be as lock-jawed as any salmon, but can be surprisingly snappy on a fresh river and a cloudy, rainy day. Was really good for me to get my aging, overweight carcass back onto a river where I had to do some serious rock-hopping. I've lost about 30# but the last two days made it abundantly clear I have at least another 30 to go. Good to know that I can still fish spots like this, but only with extreme care. Use it or lose it!
Foot notes: Re-confirmed that chinook like green. Caught fish on pink, orange, and green (chartreuse). Not sure why I don't have confidence green, but it seemed to work better mid-day than pink or orange. I probably missed a lot of takes due to taking extreme care not to foul fish... which I did, but managed to keep the fair hook ratio on the plus side. If I had the last 2 days to do over I'd have tied a bunch on circle hooks. It's still possible to foul on a fin or tail with circles, but far, far less likely, and using them eliminates having to set the hook. Stupid easy, just mindlessly swing or dead drift until you have a fish on.
BOTTOM LINE: If you live near a river with a hatchery chinook run, don't turn your nose up if they are Tule stock fish. They will definitely take swung flies in deeper runs and pools, if you can find one with undisturbed fish. IMO, your best bet is to hit some pocket water after a good rain. Doesn't need to be a "special" spot. These fish aren't taking an Uber from pool-to-pool like the average salmon fisherman seems to think. ANY, bouldery spots with whitewater, that will slow moving fish long enough to put a fly in their face is good. Early or later in the day is better, but they will move all day long if the river is fresh and the weather wet and cloudy. If no fish are present, find a comfortable rock, have a snack, smoke a cigar, take some pics, whatever, just be ready and keep watch. They will show up.
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