November 4th, 2009
Here is Nookslayer fighting a pig
So with the weather, the fishing reports and the undeniable itch to fish…Nookie played some hookie. I was joined on this excursion by Meskel and a surprise visit from Bear. We didn’t get to fish long but it was a good outing.
I did manage to hook in to a large coho (I’m pretty sure Bear got video) to brake the cherry on the new 7/8 wt switch rod that Meskel just finished building me.
Landing the fish took all I had since I was under-sticked and apparently was late with the hookset…in the dorsal. Bear hooked in to a very bright and very angry coho that found a rock and let itself go. That fish was CHROME and looked to be big. Can’t wait to hear the rest of his report.
Great day!!
~NS
Posted in Fish Reports | 7 Comments »
November 4th, 2009
Sup fellas. I know its takes me awhile to get shhh sent off but here it is. these pics were taken Oct 22 on the Olympic Peninsula which is between Amanda Park and Forks Washington. The river I was on is entirely within the Olympic national forrest. After getting skunked the week before, I returned to try my luck again.
This time I was with Brian Blattman who is a guy I work with. Brian has been fishing this and others annually for about 20 years now. Rain had finally returned to the area about 5 before dumping 2.5 inches of rain which caused the river to go from 800 c.f.s to 30,000 in the matter of one day. when we arrived there the river had dropped back down to 3800.
On the way into our fishing spot which is about a half-mile hike through pristine rain forest we came upon some fresh bear tracks near the mouth of salmon creek which we took as a sign that the fish were in. When we got to our honey hole I decided to cross the river to better access the deepest part of a long deep run.
Crossing wasn’t difficult because I could walk down and across the river just above where it split off into two side channels, however I knew the return trip would require far more effort. I began fishing using a 3/4 ounce swiveled weight with about 3 feet of leader and a size 4 blue fox vibrax with a black body and a silver blade with and orange highlights.
Bout the third cast I felt the all too familiar tug at the end of my line. I easily horsed the 8 lb. coho to the bank with my 8′6″ heavy action rod (actually the rod is now 8′2″ thanks to a being tripped by an unseen branch the year before). Excited by my early success I proceeded to fish the up stream.
I hooked into a king that appeared to be about 20 lbs, unfortunately my drag had been inadvertently set to max and my main couldn’t bear the strain (its no daisy).
After losing about half of my spinners to the wooden debris that lined the hole I hooked into a 12 lb. coho hen. She put up a valiant effort to free herself from my hook, but in the end she proved no match for the Shortdog.
Having landed the fish on a muddy bank with not net I realized I had no weapon sturdy enough slay the foul beast so i proceeded to punch the fish repeatedly with my left fist. Turns out i don’t quite have the knock out power required to subdue shower of mud and cold river water that was being created by her desperate struggle to return to her life’s last mission.
Having had enough I finally found a rootball and won the battle with a final blow to the head. After gutting both fish I skewered them though the jaw and began upstream crossing back to where my fishing partners awaited to check out the bounty. Neither Brian or his son Jake had hooked any fish so convinced Brian to tag one the fish so I could keep fishing.
By now the rain had returned to its full furry which as we all know can make for some soggy sacks, but we kept at it. Brian had lost two fish before he hooked into a nice 18 lb king. It took about 10 min to get the fish on the bank, but since you cant keep any on this river we snapped a few pics and let him go..
By this point I had lost all my good spinners so I was relegated to using a large pink and liver spoon. Since I don’t ever recall catching a fish on a spoon, I was confident I wouldn’t be hooking anything else, but to my surprise I went 1 for 2 with the thing landing a 13 lb chromer hen.
At that point we decided to call it a day. While looking for something to carry my harvest on the long journey back to the truck I stumbled upon a 5 point elk shed horn sticking up out of the gravel. I threaded the fish onto the horn and we headed out, all the while in the back of my head I was hoping the bear was not waiting to ambush me.
This river is only about 100 miles from my house, if I could drive there in a straight line however it takes about 3.5 hours to drive the loop through Olympia and Aberdeen. Thankfully Brian drove cause I was pooped and I can only remember about 10 minutes of the long drive home. tight lines y’all.
Here are the rest of all those pics:
Shorty
Posted in Fish Reports | 5 Comments »
