Thursday, January 9, 2014

A Confidence Day


Outside of one day swinging for king salmon in early September, I didn't get to fish with one of my best friends. Different work schedules have a way of making that happen and so we fished individually for a few months. Those few months were filled with a complete void of pictures from the photographer in the pair, and a lot of selfies for Adam, who was able to spend more time than ever walking the snow covered banks of the Salmon River swinging for steel. In late December, the stars aligned and we had the river mostly to ourselves. It ended up being quite the day, as several new variables in our approach produced one of the best days we've had in quite some time. 




The very low temperatures combined with a fresh eight inches of snow seemed to keep most anglers and drift boats off the water. This allowed us to fish runs and pools that we only wished to swing on any other day of the year. We took turns and hop scotched our way downriver picking off a fish in most pools, just like its supposed to happen. The highlight came when Adam hooked up with a nice fish and started screaming and hollering about the craziness of the day. I was downstream a ways and proclaimed, "let me take one more cast to see if we can get a double". Well, I laid one across stream, kicked a big mend, and stepped down under a tree. Whammo. Double hook up on the swing in 9 degree temperatures. The day only got better from there...


Low of 8 and a high of 12, 
the ice beard begins... 


Even the seagulls wouldn't get in the water...


I think we cleared ice out of our guides twice in the entire day. 


Yea, that's the spot...


Clutch that hand warmer...


It continued to snow and snow and snow...






A feisty buck...





The first of the day out of a deep pool fishing the upper column...



An essential item to prevent the reel from freezing due to snow...



Snow bench...


A fresh one tied on frozen tippet... 


The double...




Gear for the elements...


Snow mattress...


One of the more aggressive takes I've had all year...




An end of the day tailout taker...



The ice beard scarf...


1 comment:

mike doughty said...

those are some great fish. solid work!