More fish pics

More pics of Mark, Michael and me with Chinooks.


It seems to be the typical reaction of people to want o fish in the same hole as the guy catching fish. Sometimes you just can't find a stretch of crick that has fish and no people there trying to catch them. Saturday and Sunday were not too bad as you can tell by the pics. Monday however, was a different story. We only had half a day Monday to fish so we went to a section of river that ran through town so we had more fishing time and less driving time. Mark and I had settled in to a good hole of water (where I caught he steelhead actually) . It was a short section about knee deep, 40 ft long with a riffle at each end. Visibility was good and it held its fair share of fish. There was a line of fish about four to five deep across each riffle and there were several cruising around the deeper hole. Mark and I pulled about a half dozen fish out of there in about a half hours time. So here we are drifting our fly to the fish we called and PLOP PLOP we look up to see that the two guys who had been fishing just downstream from us had crossed the riffle and were now right across from us interrupting our drift with their flies.

We turn around and climb the bank and took a break. We took a little walk and circled around and got back in where they had originally been. There were quite a few fish there too. In typical Mark form he loudly ask me, " SOOO Ray, how many cast do you think it will take for me to hook one of these? What 3...4 ...maybe 5?" I kid you not, the first drift was perfect right to a 18-20lb Chinook's mouth. That fish started thrashing the water started splashing and one of the intruders upstream was so struck by the scene that he lost his footing and SPLASH butt first right in the water. It was absolutely classic. For sure one of the highlights of my trip.

Just as a thought.................. Youngsters are made to take Hunter safety courses before getting their hunting license. My daughter recently took the class to get her hunting license and its a good program. Not only do they teach safety but ethics and sportsmanship on top of it. I am the last one to want another law or rule on the books. But if people don't take some initiative to teach their kids to be respectful and courteous on the water it won't surprise me some day to see water safety and ethics classes being required before one can get a fishing license as well.

I am not at all opposed to sharing the water with people. As popular as sport fishing has become it is inevitable now days to run onto other fisherman on the water. Practice good sportsmanship, give your fellow fisherman some room and try to stay out of his casting lane to make it possible to successfully share a hole of water.

May you all have tight lines. We enjoyed several this past weekend.

Ray