Had a fun time at the Wind this weekend. Saw a few fish actually hooked in the mouth but the other 90% were all foul hooked.

Here's a movie of our very own World Famous Kid Sauk fighting a Springer. The fish was actually one of the very few that I physically saw bite. Starring in the movie is KidSauk, Superfly, and Pam. The movie was shot, edited (not), and directed by Parker. The voice in the background is that of BigDave. I can be heard at the end of the movie shouting Justin's name.
http://staff.washington.edu/parker/saukit2em.mov

PS - I took a ton of photos of snaggers, liners, flossers, and the likes. Got some great movies of fish being snagged and hauled in by their butts! Even got a shot of some flosser who broke is Loomis in half on a snagged fish. The moron actually smiled at me as I filmed him. Most people were just too stupid to realize that I was filming them illegally snagging. Since enforcement is practically non-existant there, it's basically a free-for all.

Ok, I couldn't resist. Here's a movie of a flosser caught on video:
http://staff.washington.edu/parker/flosser.mov

Next, here comes in a fish snagged in the buttocks. Ouch. Poor fishy.
http://staff.washington.edu/parker/backasswards.mov

Not my style of "fishing".

PPS. I love the quote at the end of the first movie by Superfly:

"It'll brighten up after it's been on ice for a while!"

Ha!

Parker

[ 05-29-2001: Message edited by: parker ]

Here's another FYI for you all.

The only three fish I touched on Saturday were foul hooked. All on short 18" leaders while using eggs and no corky.

At the end of the drift, you could feel the "tap tap tap" of something hitting your line. Mind you, this wasn't the same "tappidy tappidy chew chew tug tug" of a fish picking up the eggs. Anyways, I was able to foul hook these fish by simpley giving a hard hook set on a supposed "bite".

I broke all the fish off as soon as I saw they were foul hooked and stopped doing it once I convinced myself that these fish were really not biting.

I can't tell you how many times I heard "I felt it bite". Funny how if that fish actually bit, why is that hook on the outside of it's mouth or in it's belly!

Mind you, with that many fishermen and fish, you will get a few fish to bite. We kept a few fish, but I can honestly tell you that there were all hooked on the *inside* of the mouth while using eggs and short leaders. We broke off all foul hooked fish as soon as we saw that it was foul hooked.

Parker
Springerless in Seattle

[ 05-29-2001: Message edited by: parker ]

I fished down there may 13-16 and 20-22. On the 15th saw 5 people ticketed after coming down from the area you were fishing. From what I heard the offenses were snagging, netting snagged fish and fishing to close to the dam. They must have been watching them from high up because they knew when they were coming out and did not stop them until they got to the pay area. There was 2 game wardens and 2 state troopers. Other than that I only saw the game wardens one other time.

I guess I got lucky timing my vacation. A friend of mine fished the same area you did saturday and only got one. He said it slowed way down and was much more cowded. It is a great looking river. If I lived closer I would just go for the exercise. By the end of the last day it was starting to feel good hiking up and down those trails.

I stayed home this weekend and smoked some steelhead and spring chinook. Also canned some spring chinook.

I have been fishing many times when someone says it was hot yesterday or last week.

Good luck next time.

[ 05-29-2001: Message edited by: FishCatcher ]

Ok, here's my final for the trip.

We did see one dude catch a native summer run steelhead. He was going to keep it until Superfly raced over there and forced him to release it. Grudgingly, the dude dumped the fish out of the net and straight on to a rock. After smacking the rock and rolling in to the river, it floated belly-up until it was prodded by the net. It did roll over and swim away hard, so just maybe that wasn't fatal. I can't tell you how hard Joe, Justin, and I resisted the temptation to toss that dumbass in to the river!

Parker

Parker, I tried on ifish and over here and can't get your movies to play. I would like to see the footage. The error message I'm receiving says something like "unable to download appropiate decompressor".

You will probably need to download and use QuickTime.

That works on both my Mac and PC here at work.

Hey folks, first post here. Parker I did see a little of what you were talking about. I saw you filming up there above the falls. This helps keep some of us honest anyway. Saw the guy break his pole and saw the guy keep the hooked in the rear fish. I was fishing next to two quality fishers that knew their stuff. One brother was using tuna balls and doing very well. The fish that did bite were really slamming his line. I used eggs and a chatruse small corky witha #3 gammy hook. This was successful twice in mouth hooking fish. Unfortunatly the second fish was halfway in when I broke the handle on my reel. Not fixable so we broke the fish off.

I will say that 90% seems a little high, at least in my area. I would say more like 60 to 65% would be accurate. I did net a belly hooked fish for the guy fishing next to me because it would not break off. Fish revived and swam off strong.

It was a beautiful day for fishing. Oh yeah, I could not play your video either.

I have QuickTime and it's not working for me either.

Parker, I,m going to try and download your movie hope it works, went to the wind for the first time, we went past the hot springs through some logging roads I,m not sure what you call it, it was the first time I,ve ever had to us a rope to climb down a hill to fish. Anyways not many fish caught fish had already moved up. I caught a nice 4lbs. jack and actually hooked into a nice one and lost it because my friends line got tangled in mine it was pretty comical trying to chase that thing down the rapids while he tried to cut his line off of my pole, I was using my strawberry jello eggs and a purple and chartruise corky, not a big fan of flossers or snaggers would rather not catch one at all then snag it, had fun for first time can't wait for next year.

The guy in the flossing video was a dumbass. They showed up late in the day with their 8 foot leaders, #1 hooks, and #14 corkies. They were using 1oz. weights on a dropper too. I played dumb and told them that they were not going to get springers to bite such tiny gear. They laughed and said "oh, yeah, watch us!". They were surprised when I called their bluff and said that we don't tolerate lining fish down here and the game warden is up in the woods with a spotting scope so good luck explaining yourselves. Each time they hooked a fish I deliberately cast over their line to try and mess 'em up which worked great. My 50lb. Power Pro line was no match for their 12lb. mono. hehehe Soon they got the message and moved out of the area. What made me even more angry was the fact that they were long lining down across all of our lines and hogging the hole.

Notice the hookset in the flossing video. He has to sweep the rood in a ten foot arc to get that long leader through the mouth so the hook will stick on the *outside* of the mouth. Pretty stupid technique considering the fish are good biters. No need for that crap. Also notice the dumb hick trying to net that tail-snagged fish. We also have video from my camcorder showing people keeping snagged fish. It was hilarious to see the guys snag a fish, land it, then look over their shoulder to see who's looking and right as they were going to bonk it we yelled out "smile! You're on candid camera!".

Great videos guy's. Look like this would and should be easy pickings for an undercover warden.

I was able to watch these after downloading quicktime http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Great videos guys. Before its too late, I should make a run down there and check it out. It looks like a total blast!!! Combat fishing can be fun if you have the right ingridents and it looks the Canyon on the Wind does.

Speaking of snagged fish, fished the Icicle Monday (alas, no birthday fish for me ), anyways a chromer springer jumped within net distance of our boat 5 times trying to shake a buzzbomb haning outs of its *sshole. Poor fishy.

What's proper if you do snag a fish? Fishing a river like the Wind with that number of fish in the water its probably inevitable no matter what you do. Do you bring it in, remove the hook, and then release it; or do you just break off?

Break/cut your leader off once you know it's a foul hooked fish. You'll do far less harm to the fish that way, as apposed to letting it get netted, handled, and have it thrash around on the rocks.

Parker

If that percentage of guys are snagging fish ethically-they should pinch barbs-single hook. Many times, although legal to have a barbed hook- I will pinch the barb and release is made that much easier.

Hey Parker. What would I have to do to get a copy of the tapes? I may be able to put them to good use as far as cleaning up that place, or a leash on it anyways. Remember, the HQ is a couple of blocks away.

Let me know if you want me to send you some tapes to record it to. It wouldn't be a problem to send the tapes. I have to clear out the older porn tapes anyways.

seriously though, let me know.

I WOULD THINK IF YOU GOT A SNAGGED FISH YOU SHOULD TRY TO GET THE HOOK OUT OF THE FISH.THE FISH SWIMMING AROUND WITH A HOOK AND LINE ATTACHED TO IT IS BOUND TO GET HUNG UP CAUSING FURTHER INJURY TO THE FISH.GRANTED GETTING A SNAGGED FISH IN WITHOUT TOTALLY EXHAUSTING THE FISH IS HARD TO DO.SCOTT

Had a great weekend on the wind, granted I fouled hooked a few fish but the cool part is I also released them, also caught plus limits of legals care to be premier hang in there guys if you still want to catch springers don't let all the bad P.R. get you down!!!! FISH-ON

OK, I loaded Quicktime and still cannot get these movies to play. What's the secret?

Due to space restraints, I deleted those videos in order to add the new video of Team Vision fighting a fish. Videos will come and go, like the wind......

Parker