2009 » September

By Sal Monid



I spent the weekend in Leavenworth Washington (about 20 miles East of Wenatchee) to participate in the 19th year of this festival which is a community celebration of the return of the summer Chinook salmon.













I flew to Wenatchee and was picked up by Cam Thomas the Forest fish guy and a dynamite angler. He pulled up in his new diesel half ton towing a 17 foot boat ready to go fishing. Twenty minutes later we had launched in the Columbia and ran 15 minutes upstream to his favorite area. He was nice enough to introduce me to jigging in carefully selected spots and in short order I said “I think I got one.” A few minutes later we boated a 7.5 pounder. I am saying that this is my kind of fishing. We worked hard and Cam lost a nice one and we landed a number of pike minnows. I finally hung another running about 6 pounds. After a couple more hours we headed back to the dock in total darkness and had the run back all to our selves.

The following day I drove up to Leavenworth. The Salmon Festival runs for 4 days with Thursday and Friday dedicated to teaching local school classes about rivers, fish, wildlife, Tribal customs and values and respecting the out-of- doors. More than 44 classes came through the numerous learning displays and hands on activities.





Saturday and Sunday are for the public. I cruised the area and got to talk to lots of the volunteers and take lots of pictures. Activities included a Salmon tent for story telling, a 60 foot long traveling aquarium for fish viewing, chalk art, Gyotaku (making fish prints from real fish), Tribal dancing and displays and a range of other activities including fly tying and casting, kayaking etc. More than 50 partners come together to make the event happen and the pride and energy are contagious.





Late in the afternoon I headed up into Tumwater Canyon where the Wenatchee cuts through some major mountains to see if I could find some holding salmon. They are still a couple of weeks away from spawning and like to hold in the many deep pools and runs. I finally located a bunch right off the road and spent the last hour of daylight marveling at these 20-40 pounders that had made the 500 mile trip to come home.





It was a weekend that was hard to beat.

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