Sandy Report

[Steve L.]

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/Sandy_coho_3.jpg
I was fortunate enough to be invited for Coho on the Sandy with AndyK. What a guy, leads me to a great spot on the river, offers friendly advice on setup and flies and away we go. The water is very cloudy, a nice tan soup. Dark patterns are the fly de jour. 15 minutes into fishing Andy hooks up with his first native of the season, a buck, broke the curse of "hatchery fish only" :applause:. A half hour later, fish on ! Andy is busy again, a nice bright hen this time. This is just getting me more and more stoked :dance:. I'm getting the hang of my new 10wt outfit, more casting, less flailing. Another half hour and BAM fish on and OMG it's me this time :bigshock:. My first river caught Coho ! A nice 30" hatchery buck and just in time. I need to bring something home from time to time so my wife has a little more incentive to issue more kitchen passes. I may look serious, but I was just struggling to keep the SEG off my face :grin:. More luck, the fly he took was something I tied up based on other dark patterns I'd seen. Now I need to name it, I guess :wink:. To shorten this a bit Andy has two more hookups, but won't count them because the flies aren't where they should be. Just to show he hasn't lost his magic he nails another one about an hour before we're planning on getting off the river, 31" buck. This was the best fly fishing lesson I've had! Thanks Andy :cheers:

And a bonus on the day, I met Silverfly and PTS on the river too. Sort of a mini Ifish convention. Nice to meet you guys ! :cheers:

[john montana]

nice report! i was thinking of heading down there one more time before the end of the season...

[LunkerFish]

Nicely done Steve :applause:

You know, I might have to skip one more day of school :sick: :grin: and get down there again....

[PTS]

Congratulations, Steve, on your nice coho. They are very tasty. Sorry I didn't stay around to visit, but by the time I got there Andy was already four fish ahead of me. :applause: I had an enjoyable day fishing with Silverfly. It's nice to meet a few more ifishers. I am not as good a guide as Andy. I tried to lead by example but couldn't land any of the fish I hooked today. Then, I wanted to show Guy some new water that is good for Steelhead and away from the crowds. There is a trail out of there, but it has not been used much and was hard to find. I "guided" silverfly in circles in the dense woods until I was hopelessly lost. Fortunately, he spotted a path and we climbed our way out of the canyon. Still, he rewarded me with a very nice selection of flies for steelhead and silvers. Nice bonus for a bad guide job. :bowdown: Thanks for fishing with me today, Guy, I look forward to another trip.

[lilnorthfork]

Thanks for the great report Steve. :cheers: You eastsiders have got it going on. :smash:
lnf

[SilverFly]

It felt great to be out on the river today and meeting 2 "new" ifishers was a bonus. Congrats on the coho Steve, hopefully you won't develop a bad silver salmon addiction like I have!

As for getting lost in the woods today, I made matters worse by suggesting one barely visible trail, so PTS doesn't get all the credit. The little "detour" we went on was well worth it seeing some new water. Halfway into it I was really glad I wasn't packing out the one fish that I lost. Fortunately I survived the trek without having a coronary, - but just barely (pretty sad since he's got 20 years on me!). Guess I need to start working out more.

The only bad thing about fishing with PTS today was confirming my suspicion that Spey rods are really phenomenal nymphing sticks with zero backcast requirements! Crap, not only do I have to start saving for another fly outfit, I have to start saving for a REALLY expensive one!!! Hmmm, I wonder if Walmart sells Spey rods?

Thanks for sharing some of your secrets Phil. Anytime you want to fish again, let me know!

-------------

[TillamookChinook]

Very nice reports. I'm glad someone is getting into some fish.

TC

[Abalone]

Fishing with Andy is awesome.

First of all he knows what he is doing.

Andy doesn't let other fisherman bother him.

I mean Andy could walk right in on a bunch of Snaggers and could care less. But don't get in his way.

Andy is a very generous man. I once saw him hand off his fishing rod to a young kid to watch the look on the kids face as he landed a salmon..

Andy doesn't swear, [petunias!] or complain.

I would be glad to fish with him anytime.

[Ryan Pultz]

thanks for the report we were going to fish it Monday but it looked like a latte so we moved over to eagle creek. rp

[Steve L.]

Ryan - It looked like a latte when we fished it too, but the dark flies ( as opposed to the dark side :wink:)seemed to work nonetheless. I'd fish it again next week if I could. Wouldn't fish on a weekend though. There were enough gear chuckers there on Weds.

How did you do on Eagle creek ?