Salmon River 2017

Our annual fishing trip to Salmon River is a highlight of the year, as much for the camaraderie as the fish, but some years when the salmon run cooperates its simply amazing...this was one of those years. 

Paul and Jacob were not able to join us this year so the our fishing fire-team was Bill, Fritz, Henry and yours truly.  After beating traffic out of DC well before the crack of dawn I met Fritz lounging against his bumper at our favorite parking pull-out at the top of the Upper Fly Section East of Altmar and just down stream from Salmon River Reservoir.  Fritz and Bill had been fishing and visiting for several days and Fritz had the relaxed satisfaction of already having fought, landed and released some monsters.    Some years we count success as a single fish brought to hand...this year we didn't even count. As we walked through the woods our senses caught the rush of the river punctuated by splashes from the jumping salmon and cries of 'Fish-on' from the resident anglers at the upper hole.   At the upper hole hooking up and landing is a matter of location and drift.   Fritz went about 5 minutes before his 8wt Recon bent with the weight and fight of a handsome Chinook (king) salmon, brought to hand on a salmon river flea a local fly tied the night before.

After 90 minutes Henry rustled through the woods behind us his hearty fishing smile letting us know he was happy to see us and to be off the long miles on I-81.  We fished till sundown with many hook ups some foul but most fair until we couldn't see to tie on a fresh fly.   Here's Henry in the darkness that smile as large as the hump on the king's back!





The next morning found Henry and I at the prime spots at Meadow Run.   We hadn't started particularly early and were surprised that there was but one other angler there upon our arrival.   As we watched our watches expectantly we finally made our first casts at whaat we guessed was 30 minutes before sunrise, the start of the fishing day on the DSR and then on my second cast with Salmon running right in front of my knees a King lit me up in the predawn light purple.   He fought for a good 15 minutes and I was super happy to bring him to hand.   As the day wore on we made the acquaintance of the other early morning angler and he was fascinating.   He was (well he still is) an engineer from Quebec who fished for steelhead -- he catches some salmon but kind of considers them a necessary evil as they pave the gravel with eggs beckoning the Steelhead will to a meal.   This fella more than ties his own flies but makes his own hooks out of stout chemically hardened piano wire!   I might have called BS on the story until he showed us one of his many fly boxes...here's a picture of his art.

Henry soon brought a king to hand and with fish in the book and smiles on our faces we enjoyed the morning.    Bill and Fritz arrived and for an hour or three we all enjoyed fishing meadow run.

Salmon River Flea -- Salmon Slayer

Henry Took the picture but is in the photo in spirit

The rest of the trip was spent visiting, eating and hooking into salmon after salmon, you'd bring some to hand, lose other good hooks and break off foul hooks.   We split our time between the familiar haunts of the DSR and the upper fly fishing section 10 miles upstream.   In the future we may forgo DSR passes and just stick with upper section if the salmon are in greater numbers further up.  Several flies seemed to work really well, green and black zonker streamers were lights out as was the Salmon River flea a local creation discovered and retied by Fritz to all of our benefit.

Flush with catching all the Salmon we needed to we also enjoyed exploring more of the river in the lower estuary area and found dissagregated water, almost trout stream water holding monster salmon...what a treat!

This smaller salmon and Henry's monster below came from skinny water!

This Epic Photo will travel back to NZ to the Epic shop Henry visited and the Epic Owner

Watch out for your fingers!

We also really enjoyed the upper fly where Fritz in particular made a killing. Here he is working his drift to a tight seam in an otherwise stiff current.

Fritz surveys the run

works his drift along the rock bank to find holding water

enjoys the salmon of his labors

 We had other great ties along the way incluoding seeing Henry fall (twice) in slow motion into a fast pool whole hooked into a big salmon -- yes he could have steadied himself and not dunked but that would have lost tension on the chinook so he dunked and skidded alongt the bottom with his right arm raised above the current keeping tension on that fish!  Well played by fiend well played.

A large bow (not quite a steelhead) who came to play

Dead Kings were everywhere, note the birds had pecked out the soft eye tissue!

Henry -- salmon on -- the scenery was gorgeous 

My stick an 8wt 11'6' ECHO switch w a 9/10 wt TFO prism reel pared with 540 grain shooting head 

Sunset over Meadow Run

Salmon Drag marks lead the way home during a night time walk to the Jeep

Sunset at the DSR lot

Thanks for reading about this adventure -- for videos please see: