Some times funny things happen. Last Saturday Shad and I spent the day fishing for whatever with Jim Kerr, just cuz. I thought we might get into some coho and SRC. We began by targeting coho, Shad got one, but most of 'em had lock jaw. I first got on the board by hooking and landing a sockeye, which resembled neither a coho nor an SRC.
So we sorta' settled into casting dry flies for cutts. We caught a few, then a few more, and eventually quite a bunch of 'em. Then I caught what seemed like a large SRC, but looking at it in the net and I couldn't confidently identify it. I even thought it might be a jack silver for a second. We settled on it probably being a cutbow, since it looked sorta' cutthroatish and steelheadish at the same time. We shoulda' taken a photo.
Early afternoon found us in tidewater, and we thought some fresh coho might have come in on the tide. We could see some salmon moving around. Jim handed me his Loomis NRX 6 weight, which might as well be honestly labeled an 8 wt. I cast below a log into a trouty looking spot and immediately hooked a salmon, but it came unhooked. Another cast to the same area resulted in an immediate hookup to roughly 12 pounds of ocean bright salmon. Only it wasn't a coho. Or silver either, for that matter. It was a fresh king. I might have mentioned a time or two that I don't fly fish for kings in freshwater on purpose. Not because I regard it as being as bad as fishing for chum salmon on purpose, but because they are a lot like work. Which is what this one turned out to be like. And as too often happens, the whirring reel handle gave the knuckles on my left hand a good whack several times. And no, that wasn't the funny part. I suddenly realized that my leverage on the fish shifted. That was because the top 2 sections of Jim's fly rod worked their way off the 3rd section and were sliding down the line toward the fish. This was the funny part. It was then that Jim didn't want me to break off the fish. I should mention that 3 other boats politely moved out of the way so I could play this fish since it had run out all the line and considerable backing. As an aside, I noticed that all the other anglers were fishing bait for kings and not hooking any, at least not in this pool. I finally got most of the line in and worked close to the separated rod sections. We grabbed those, and I continued playing the fish. Got it close to the boat and thought we might actually net it. Then it broke the leader - looks like teeth had worn it through in the loop knot.
At least I didn't have to play that fish any longer. And my knuckles hurt enough that I didn't feel like casting for a little while. We fished a while longer, hoping we might encounter some stupid ocean fresh coho, but such was not to be. So I gathered one more data point for why I don't target Chinook with fly gear.
So we sorta' settled into casting dry flies for cutts. We caught a few, then a few more, and eventually quite a bunch of 'em. Then I caught what seemed like a large SRC, but looking at it in the net and I couldn't confidently identify it. I even thought it might be a jack silver for a second. We settled on it probably being a cutbow, since it looked sorta' cutthroatish and steelheadish at the same time. We shoulda' taken a photo.
Early afternoon found us in tidewater, and we thought some fresh coho might have come in on the tide. We could see some salmon moving around. Jim handed me his Loomis NRX 6 weight, which might as well be honestly labeled an 8 wt. I cast below a log into a trouty looking spot and immediately hooked a salmon, but it came unhooked. Another cast to the same area resulted in an immediate hookup to roughly 12 pounds of ocean bright salmon. Only it wasn't a coho. Or silver either, for that matter. It was a fresh king. I might have mentioned a time or two that I don't fly fish for kings in freshwater on purpose. Not because I regard it as being as bad as fishing for chum salmon on purpose, but because they are a lot like work. Which is what this one turned out to be like. And as too often happens, the whirring reel handle gave the knuckles on my left hand a good whack several times. And no, that wasn't the funny part. I suddenly realized that my leverage on the fish shifted. That was because the top 2 sections of Jim's fly rod worked their way off the 3rd section and were sliding down the line toward the fish. This was the funny part. It was then that Jim didn't want me to break off the fish. I should mention that 3 other boats politely moved out of the way so I could play this fish since it had run out all the line and considerable backing. As an aside, I noticed that all the other anglers were fishing bait for kings and not hooking any, at least not in this pool. I finally got most of the line in and worked close to the separated rod sections. We grabbed those, and I continued playing the fish. Got it close to the boat and thought we might actually net it. Then it broke the leader - looks like teeth had worn it through in the loop knot.
At least I didn't have to play that fish any longer. And my knuckles hurt enough that I didn't feel like casting for a little while. We fished a while longer, hoping we might encounter some stupid ocean fresh coho, but such was not to be. So I gathered one more data point for why I don't target Chinook with fly gear.