Puget Sound

Snuck out today for a solo outing before I gotta head to Westport. Buddy boated with @ffb and his buddy.

I almost didn't go but I'm sure glad I did. Fishing was stellar. Lots of coho action in the morning till about 10 or so. Just as the other day coho were blowing up tiny sandlance and some other specieiss and were very aggressive when we could get in position. I landed around 8 coho, 3 pinks, and lost another 6 or 8 solid fish along with countless grabs and follows. Lost one really nice coho that not only earned the reel but managed to take about 10' of backing. Got it back close to the boat and it jumped and spit the hook. Nicest coho I've touched this year by far. One other hot fish earned the reel.

Once it slowed down we ran to humpy hill to see if they were still around. I got there a bit ahead of Jon and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I thought I was seeing masses of jumpers but thought for sure it must just be white caps. Nope, it was pinks. More than I've ever seen in my life. Just a non stop mass of them. I have never seen so many fish in the air at one time in my life. What followed was pure madness until my wrist couldn't take it anymore and I reeled in and just floated next to Jon and watched fish eat their flies. It was a lot of fun.

Smoke made things really weird out there this morning. It stayed dark for a long time and provided great cover.

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Stonedfish said:
Yep
When my first Coastal Quickshooter snapped in half, the customer service gal told me “our lines never break”. Funny, because mine just did. So did @Buzzy line and so several others I know.
I was also told by the same customer service rep that professional guides replace their lines every year. How that applies to me, I’m not sure. I kindly told her I’m not a guide, I don’t have a pro deal and I expect $100 lines to last a lot longer than just a few months.
Yes they will continually replace them, but I’d prefer not to go through the hassle.
SF
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Trick is to buy two at the same time. Then when the first one breaks, you send that one in and use the other one you bought until the replacement comes. Keep cycling thru them like that.
 
Rio seems to be stingier about warranty replacement with the corporate merge. I had a one month old outbound short that developed cracks in the loop and they wanted to charge me $25 for to replace it. We went back and forth for several days before they finally shipped one for free.
 
Matt B said:
Well hot diggity dog, that was fun. I landed about 10 fish today. Hard to keep track after a few. One resi coho and the rest pinks. Oh, one humpy too.

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I feel like this morning’s session was kind of the fruition of a fair amount of working on this little boat. So glad I got to use it to fish out there (i.e. it’s open and the boat is running). Only thing is with this set up there really isn’t room for a fishing partner! I strip into one of the big containers and run around looking for fins. Floating line, long leader, heavy fly was the hot set up today. Airflo bass line worked well for this. The 300 grain streamer express was getting under the fish that I was fishing to, I think. Worst part was stopping because of needing to go to work!

The set up:

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I like the reel! Classics are fun as heck on the salt, grease a lot and no problems. Your handle is on the wrong side though. 😎looks like a good time 🤘
 
RCF said:
And people wonder why Rio fly lines are so expensive... With all those replacement lines they do I bet they are still making a profit.
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It costs RIO les than $10 to make, market, ship each fly line. The are making a 10 fold profit on each line, a bit less for those that need replacing. I only buy a couple RIO lines for saltwater flats fishing these days (not worth the risk to buy their cold water fly lines). SA, Cortland, Airflo have better products in every fly line category.
 
Divad said:
I like the reel! Classics are fun as heck on the salt, grease a lot and no problems. Your handle is on the wrong side though. 😎looks like a good time 🤘
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I believe that having reels with handles going every which way allows me to maintain brain plasticity. However, do not hand me a spinning reel with right hand retrieve--a contemptible device if ever there was one.
 
Matt B said:
I believe that having reels with handles going every which way allows me to maintain brain plasticity. However, do not hand me a spinning reel with right hand retrieve--a contemptible device if ever there was one.
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My wife and dol reel right handed. I'm the guy that has to turn it up side down to make it work. Just a spaz I guess.
 
Nick Clayton said:
Personally I think pinks are delicious fresh on the grill.

Humpies, on the other hand... I like to catch them up river and just filet out the hump. Combined with my secret brine, smoked hump is a culinary treat that simply can't be rivaled.
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So smoked humpy backstrap? Sounds delicious!
SF
 
Today I saw a homeless (aka - unhoused) guy at an inland Walmart parking lot panhandling with a pink buzzbomb rigged spinning rod. This tells me the humpy run is stronger than average. 2+2 announcement inside Puget Sound is forthcoming.
 
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