some of your fave fishing sessions?

October of 2023 on the Skagit. I took my childhood fishing buddy and our kids (6 and 5 at the time) to chase pinks. The display of biology that day would have made it memorable. Standing on a riffle my daughter and I counted 200 pinks shooting through a 10ft gap in about 5 minutes. Eagles, elk, dippers out in abundance.

The catching was next level. My daughter is swinging a purple comet on a single hand skagit, hooking up every other cast. My buddy's sun has a pink jig under a red white bobber on a push button reel and is slaying. My buddy hit a big multi species day, catching pinks, coho, 1 early chum, a cutt and a couple bulls.

Somewhere around 100 pinks landed my friends son, standing next to his dad, launches a cast right as dad hooks up. He looks up to see him set the hook and loses his balance, plunging into the slack water we were standing in.

We all scramble. My daughter and I off to the truck to see if we have anything dry for him. We find a coat and head back, where my buddies son is standing in his underwear, defiantly shouting at his dad "WERE NOT GOING HOME!! THERE ARE TOO MANY HUMPIES DADDY!!"

We build a fire, warm some bones and get back to it. The heavens open up and we all end up drenched, but those kids fished until the dads were whooped and called it.

I've been fishing with this guy since we were that age. We taught each other how to fish and have saved each others asses many times in the field. The picture I got of our drowned rat kids coming off the river that day was a straight up portal to 1997. I will never forget that day.

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Years ago, when my daughter was about 5, we took her to a trout fishery near Graham. They had a series of stocked ponds with grass walk ways in between. We hooked her up with a pole, bobber and salmon egg and had her cast into the pond on the right where nobody else was fishing. Sure enough her bobber disappeared and she started reeling it in. When she got ready to pull up on the trout, she pulled so hard it flew over her head into the pond on the left! Her grandpa was taking a super 8mm movie of all this, but he ws laughing so hard he didn't catch the trout flying through the air. He did catch her pulling the trout out of the new pond however and walking towards us hugging the 14" trout heads down against her chest with the tail slapping her in the face. OMG it's still clear memory after almost 35 years.
We debated sending the movie into Americas Funniest Home Videos but never did.
 
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Last day of the Skagit season, 1982, Dan & I were going to float the lower Sauk and down to Faber's on the Skagit. After shuttling my truck Dan decided he would spend the day camped on Sauk Bar, figuring that might be the best odds of hooking a fish. We were near the put in spot; I carried my canoe to the Wagon Wheel on the Old Gov't Road and launched solo. Dan went to Sauk Bar. Nothing happened at the first two runs I fished, and then I came upon a newish log jam on river left where I had hit a fish earlier in the season. Nothing there today however. The next run was Dellinger's, where he had managed to persuade the Corps to dump some rip rap along the eroding right bank. A gentle, pointy-top riffle marked the beginning of the pool in that year. I really liked it because I knew I could get my fly down deep using 15' of Hi-Speed, High D as my homemade sinking tip line. I had a decent hit just where the riffle edged into the pool, but no hook up. I fished further into the main body of the pool when I got a good solid strike. That was followed by a good run into my backing line and a jump, when I could see a good sized female steelhead. I played the steelhead for a few minutes and turned it on its side in shallow water. It was a mint bright 15 pound fish (taped), but with my camera in my pack in my canoe up the beach I didn't bother taking a picture. If you know me, you know that's pretty normal. The elbow tendinitis in my casting arm wasn't too traumitized, so I decided to return to the top of the pool, above where I got the first hit. I don't always do that, but I'm glad I did this day. As soon as I worked back down to the spot where the first hit occurred, it happened again. This time the fish stuck, and I could tell it was a heavy one. It never jumped, but did run up and down the pool a couple times. After about 20 minutes (I often checked my watch in those days to see how long it took to play a fish) I worked the fish into shallow water for the third time. When it turned on its side, I knew it was special and put my tape on him and knew it would calculate to over 20 pounds. My canoe was nearly 100' up the beach, so holding my fly rod I ran up the beach and grabbed my camera, then reeled my way back down to the large male steelhead and snapped a couple pictures. I unhooked the fly and set the fish upright. He must have recovered some while laying there because once upright, he immediately shot back into the river out of sight. With no one around, I let out a war whoop that could have been heard on the top of Sauk Mountain. As I recall, the legal catch limit was two steelhead per day, even if released. I had my limit and was done for the day, 38 pounds of steelhead in two fish. I was pretty happy. I floated out into the Skagit, and neither Dan nor anyone else was at Sauk Bar as I floated by. There was no one to tell my happy fishing story to until days later. But I will always remember that happy day that I first landed a steelhead greater than 20 pounds.
 
-I learned to fly fish on the Deschutes. We had a CRAZY salmonfly day in the late 90's, at South Junction......lots of big redsides crushing big flies...under trees, out in the middle of the river....didn't matter. Never had another day like that on the D.

-I spent 12 years running around the eastern Sierra. There's a lake I used to go to in a wilderness area down there where you can sight fish to large browns, with terrestrial patterns......might be my favorite place on earth.

-we found a lil desert pothole in central Nevada.....highway 50, then like 30 miles out on a dirt track. Crazy callibaetis hatch, chunky bows.......I love places like that.

-over a foot of snow on the ground, so we snow shoed to the water on Hot Creek....... big fish, and numbers that day. No one around......froze our asses off! The thermos of hot soup was so good!
 
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SurfnFish said:
was always surprised by the lack of fisherman on the Truckee
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I hear ya......I think maybe because it's typically a low number type river..........but obviously the quality is there. I knew a couple locals when I was down there that called it the "Trickee". I think another factor is there is actually a lot of places to fish around Reno/Tahoe.

I have spots on that river where I rarely ever saw another fisherman.
 
I'd say the one where guys were seeing the CAT FACES up in the trees FAR UP UNTO the river tributaries!!!! Guys were catching fish. Further up they WENT they saw the BIG FACES
 
WA high country, I’ve always looked at it as a dues-paying experience. Put in the work and you stand a modest chance of being rewarded.
It was the last day of a multi day backpacking trip. I was tubing around working the creek inlet on a gem of a high country lake. Yata yata my fly got crushed and I was eventually able to land a real slab of a cutty. It capped off a multi species day and was a fitting end to a great trip. It’s one of those experiences you hope to repeat someday, but deep down inside you know it’s best to savor the one you did get.


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Sooo…In Hawaii, the trolling “slam” is a mahi, an ono, an ahi, an aku and a billfish in the same day. Picked up the ono first trolling the ledge from Waianae towards Kaena Point…several mahi’s next after V bouy…bird pile produced a couple school ahi and aku…on the way home, 20 minutes from the harbor, scored a short bill spearfish. I didn’t realize we had the slam until we were home cutting up the fish…I know guys who have fished in Hawaii for 30 years without getting one.

The second “slam” was a few years back on the Big Ku river in Alaska…a mackinaw, rainbow, grayling, sockeye and a 40” pike in the slough near the river mouth…
 
I seem to remember more about the friends I was fishing with and very little about the fish. Except that one steelhead on The Dean. Thought at first it was a rock, then a butt hooked king salmon, and then it rolled and there was a definite "oh crap" moment.
 
Brute said:
Sooo…In Hawaii, the trolling “slam” is a mahi, an ono, an ahi, an aku and a billfish in the same day. Picked up the ono first trolling the ledge from Waianae towards Kaena Point…several mahi’s next after V bouy…bird pile produced a couple school ahi and aku…on the way home, 20 minutes from the harbor, scored a short bill spearfish. I didn’t realize we had the slam until we were home cutting up the fish…I know guys who have fished in Hawaii for 30 years without getting one.

The second “slam” was a few years back on the Big Ku river in Alaska…a mackinaw, rainbow, grayling, sockeye and a 40” pike in the slough near the river mouth…
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In the mid 70's took two months off from the charter boat business to surf and hang out on the North Shore of Kauai, met a couple bruddah's devoted to night beach fishing, had outlets for their catch. Would free spool their reels, paddle offerings out a hundred yards on their boards before dropping them, hang out drinking beer by the fire until a line bell started it's tune...hung out with them one night until early am and was pau, surprised by the variety and size of what they caught.
 
SurfnFish said:
In the mid 70's took two months off from the charter boat business to surf and hang out on the North Shore of Kauai, met a couple bruddah's devoted to night beach fishing, had outlets for their catch. Would free spool their reels, paddle offerings out a hundred yards on their boards before dropping them, hang out drinking beer by the fire until a line bell started it's tune...hung out with them one night until early am and was pau, surprised by the variety and size of what they caught.
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oio's & ulua's...I've spent many nights off Makua Beach on Oahu doing the same thing...and I used to swim out the baits (octopus leg & a 8 oz pyramid)...until I caught a tiger shark...kayak the baits out from then on...
 
So many, but

50+ fish day during salmonfly season on the Deschutes - the big ones were out that day too

catching lake trout on poppers with my dad (who doesn't fish much) and brother-in-law at Grosvenor Lodge in AK



a crazy day on a lake when I caught a couple dozen bows with maybe half at or above 20" then repeating it with 2 friends a week later

this day on the local ODFW bass hatchery with my son - all on flies

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One day on CXI where we posted up 100 feet apart on an endless white flat and picked off sooooo many nice bonefish and even a little GT for me. Then a great trolling session on the way back to the lodge.

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