The day started off early with me leaving my house at 4:30am to get all the way north before 6 am. We arrived on the river shortly after 7am as the sun was finishing rising. We were early enough to snag a good spot before the rest of the crowd showed up for the lovely shoulder to shoulder salmon fishing fiasco. In about 4 casts I had a humpy on the line, in another 4 or so casts the fun began. My first coho of the season was hooked, running and jumping like mad! This was the second salmon on my new Uglystick and was proving to be an excellent investment. I fought the fish for a good while, until it was finally tired enough that I could beach the fish on the bank. It was a beautifully silver Coho that was about 14lbs. We strung it up on the stringer to keep the fish alive while fishing for more. It's a general practice that we've been using for years to keep the meat fresh and gut them before we leave. We fished for hours and even though the crowds had thickened it was the only Coho that was caught on the beach. On the side that we were on there was 30+ fisherman, and than on the otherside one asshat decides to start fishing casting towards us. Mind you this is not the Skagit, let alone a wide river. I had been casting nearly all the way across the river all morning. So it was only a matter of time until Murphy's Law kicked in and the asshat caught one of our lines... I was the lucky one to get intertwined with his line... Some choice words were exchanged across the river, until he let his line out and untangled the line. Today was the day of catching things, I caught a Humpy, a Coho, the line across the river, the line to my right and left, a leaf, my hat that ways laying behind me, hell I even reeled in a rock that the hook found a hole in... After hours of fishing dad and I swapped places and I was near the stringer, for some odd reason I looked back to check on the fish, and at that moment I watched the crimp come loose and my fish starting to swim away. Instinctly I jumped after it (waders and all...), I narrowly missed the end of stringer, scooped water down my waiters, and rinsed water over my phone and wallet.... The day of fishing was now over and I was cold and wet... At least I got a picture as I was taking the hook out...
It's a bad picture, the angle makes my hand look huge... But it's the only one I got...
I will now be making a stronger stringer without any Chinese crimps... I'm thinking a metal stringer with a noose and a polypropylene rope extension. But I really don't want to bleed them and have them floating dead in the river to collect all of the contaminants in the belly...
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