AndyK
07-30-2007, 06:53 PM
My truck had to go in for maintenance this morning, so after I dropped my wife at work I drove north to explore for Pink Salmon. I arrived on Puget Sound at about 10:30. A sporting goods store told me the Pinks were in, but not in any big number yet. I asked about flies for pinks and he didn’t have any (I would have bought some just to repay him for the information). He did point out some Pink jigs that were working.
I headed down to the beach and ran into two gear fishermen who were just rigging up. We were the only shore anglers there, but there were about four boats off the beach. The tide was out. I didn’t have much time, because I had to meet my wife when she got off work.
I was using an eight-weight rod with an Intermediate line and a nine-foot 01X leader. I was using the heavy leader and had plenty of backing on the reel because it was salt water. It turned out to be a good decision.
The fly I decided to use was tied on a #4 stainless steel hook (barb bend down). It had a hot pink marabou tail, hot pink chenille body and 1-½ wraps of hot pink Schlappen hackle.
I tried various countdowns and retrieves. I estimated the fly was sinking at about 2 inches per second. While using a 36 count (putting the fly at about six feet deep) and a fast foot long strip with a three second pause, I had a fish really smash the fly. It was like the strike you get from a summer steelhead when swinging a fly. At first the fish didn’t do much and I started to strip line in; then it decided to run. It took out my entire fly line and into the backing; then it took out more backing (I don’t have the PTS “no backing rule”)
I had seen a couple harbor seals earlier, so I tightened down on the drag and started to regain my line. When the fish got close to shore, it made one last, short run and was finished. I slid it onto the beach. The large number of spots and black mouth told me it was a Chinook. It had no adipose fin and was 26 inches long, a legal fish.
http://karamanos.us/Fishing/chinook1.jpg
Last month I had been releasing Springers that small, but this was a fresh fish in the salt…
I guess I will need to make another trip to find the Pinks.
I headed down to the beach and ran into two gear fishermen who were just rigging up. We were the only shore anglers there, but there were about four boats off the beach. The tide was out. I didn’t have much time, because I had to meet my wife when she got off work.
I was using an eight-weight rod with an Intermediate line and a nine-foot 01X leader. I was using the heavy leader and had plenty of backing on the reel because it was salt water. It turned out to be a good decision.
The fly I decided to use was tied on a #4 stainless steel hook (barb bend down). It had a hot pink marabou tail, hot pink chenille body and 1-½ wraps of hot pink Schlappen hackle.
I tried various countdowns and retrieves. I estimated the fly was sinking at about 2 inches per second. While using a 36 count (putting the fly at about six feet deep) and a fast foot long strip with a three second pause, I had a fish really smash the fly. It was like the strike you get from a summer steelhead when swinging a fly. At first the fish didn’t do much and I started to strip line in; then it decided to run. It took out my entire fly line and into the backing; then it took out more backing (I don’t have the PTS “no backing rule”)
I had seen a couple harbor seals earlier, so I tightened down on the drag and started to regain my line. When the fish got close to shore, it made one last, short run and was finished. I slid it onto the beach. The large number of spots and black mouth told me it was a Chinook. It had no adipose fin and was 26 inches long, a legal fish.
http://karamanos.us/Fishing/chinook1.jpg
Last month I had been releasing Springers that small, but this was a fresh fish in the salt…
I guess I will need to make another trip to find the Pinks.