Very good weekend reports and photos.
Normally I do not fish the Chilliwack River on weekends because my work gives me the flexibility to fish during the week. Thinking that the river may not be fishable next week, I accompanied Mark for an afternoon outing. To avoid the crowd, sometimes an afternoon outing can be much more pleasant since everyone focuses on the morning bites. We arrived at a spot where Chris and I have been getting fish at around 1:00pm. To my surprise, I was delighted to find no one fishing at our spot.
We quickly geared up, headed down there to dip our floats. Chris showed up soon after and joined us for a few drifts. Action was slow. I missed a few. Mark managed to hook and lose a coho salmon. His excuse was a poor hookset due to slippery fingers on the centerpin reel.
While we didn't fish with anyone, it was good to meet some readers who came by for a quick chat.
Thanks for the kind words.
After two hours of trying, I decided to take Mark to mid river and fish another spot where Luke and I had some success on Thursday. Shane also decided to meet us there after his mushroom picking trip. We arrived and were once again excited to find no one fishing at our spot on a Saturday!
My first drift through the productive spot with a big piece of fresh pink roe sent the float diving. I set the hook but after a few kicks it swam away freely. Mark was also into a fish minutes later. It fought like a jack chinook, but we never found out as it also fell off after a minute or two of tugging.
After drifting all of our gear through there for another hour, we headed to another spot nearby.
The walk down there was rather eventful. First I fell onto a blackberry bush, cutting my fingers, maybe waders too. I still have to check. A couple of minutes later after emerging from the bush, I walked down a hill, fell head first and performed a faceplant in front of Shane because I had my rod in one hand while holding a water bottle in the other. Shane was laughing pretty hard, as was I. "Normally people slip and fall on their butt when coming down the hill.", he said. The first thing that came out of my mouth after digging my face out of the mud was, "I hope the rod isn't broken!"
Our attempts at the third run were a bit more successful. The tailout seemed to be stacked with coho salmon. I decided to swing my spoon through it. On the first cast, one coho attacked it hard halfway through the retrieve. It exploded on the surface just like Thursday's fish when hooked. Unfortunately, once again, it too came off near shore! It's becoming a bit frustrating with so many coho salmon lost in one week.
Mark managed to land a jack chinook salmon, which he kept. A few more jacks were landed before dark. Shane hooked nothing, this river hates him.
Our good day ended by having dinner with Chris, Buckeye and Buckwife.
Thanks for dinner Chris.
Although most sections of the river on the weekend are occupied with large crowds, there are definitely spots where good fishing can be hard without many anglers around. Let's hope this rain will ease off soon so the river will be back in shape for more good coho fishing before the season ends.
Author
Topic: Vedder Sept 29/07 (Read 5582 times)