Saturday, September 14, 2013

Suicide Kings



Back in August when news came of the first few salmon trickling into the Salmon River my focus on gold quickly turned to silver. In July and August I experienced the toughest carping ever. So the news of fresh chrome had me excited to say the least. After working twelve hours a day for six days, I hopped in my car for the four hour drive.. to fish for twelve straight hours on zero sleep. You got to do what you got to do...

I fished the DSR for two days straight where there were more people than salmon in the river. But none the less I had a fantastic time. The fish were few and far between and very spooky. My first day I swung the lower section hoping to locate a few fresh fish. Despite there being more people than salmon I still had entire runs to myself. I'd work my way down a run with one fly, walk back up and switch flies to do it again. Around noon I had lost all hope with the high sun and blue bird skies. I had only seen one fish move through all day. Since quitting is never an option while fishing, I swung on. It was around one o'clock when I felt it... Bump, Pull, Weight, Thrash... Holy Shit. My first king of the year grabbed a small pink comet on my first swing past a fishy looking log jam/undercut bank. After thrashing its way out to mid river it decided to go back to its holding lie. It streaked underneath the log and undercut and came back out at the top of the run with four of five other kings along for the ride, safety in numbers I suppose. I tailed the fish and gazed up and down river... Not a single soul in sight. It was magical. Later in the day I did find a small group of fish in a tailout that were so over worked through out the day they would scatter every time my fly swam past.

Day two I tried a different strategy. I started at the top of the "run" and worked my way down actually looking for fish instead to swinging empty runs and wasting my time. Its not as exciting as getting a take that your not expecting but I gave it a shot. There were ones and twos moving through fast water areas and staging in the tail out of the next run/pool. Since I had the river pretty much to myself again I watched these fish move up and let them rest in the tail out for ten minutes or so then I'd show them the goods. They were stubborn for the most part, ignoring my fly on every swing. Then there was a player. The fish tracked my wet fly for two feet or so my first pass at it. I got so pumped I shot another laser down and across and watched as the fish commit to my fly. I watched "the tug" from start to finish, it was pretty sweet. It was the only fish to commit on day two, but a one fish day is a good day.

See you on the river...




12' 7 wt. Cross S1 did some awesome work...


Judging by this fishes' mouth it was caught a dozen times out in the lake, but still willing to grab a gaudy wet fly.

1 comment:

Atlas said...

All I can say is holy shit! Those are some nice fish sir.