As soon as we got the boat in the water, the rains came in and got us a little wet. We were able to find a decent camp and get things set up quickly. Thankfully, one of Chad's neighbors hooked us up with a rain canopy. It kept our kitchen and firewood dry.
No luck on the first night. Water temps were colder than expected and the weather was predicted to drop into the mid 30's at night. Not a great outlook. We woke up the next morning to rain, but it eventually the clouds parted and the sun was hitting the water. I swear we probably checked the water temps on the depth finder no less than 36 times. We tried a few different spots and eventually settled on a previously successful area.
Around 2pm, the water temp started to climb a little. Then we had a good line bump. Then, one of the rods buckled and it was on. As we pulled off anchor and were giggling like school girls about being hooked up, Chad noticed the float that holds our anchor rope was actually floating down river with us. Uh.........not a good thing. How were we going to get our anchor back? Chad's face looked like someone just stole his lunch money. He couldn't even enjoy our first fish. We netted and bonked the hatchery fish and had 1 in the cooler.
Luckily, I was keen on getting a Springer on the fly, so I had brought my waders. I slipped them on, waded out into the off color water and probed the bottom with a rope hook. Low and behold, I found our anchor and rope and we were back in business!
Over the next hour, we hooked and landed 2 more fish! It was game on. The hot bite didn't last long, but we were fully content. The sun was out, fresh salmon for dinner, and we still had all our equipment. More to come.........
Fresh fish and freshly recovered anchor
Love these tails
Terrible picture from Chad, but excellent fish. Back in the water to do its deal.
You bet it was good