Two solid days bookended by short days on a crowded hole on the sol duc. I know some of you were probably there...

...anyway, you start to notice certain things.

Fri night...

Fifteen guys from out of town in the head of the hole all throwing number four vibrax. I walk in, head directly for the tailout and after about ten casts hook and land an eight pound silver on a spoon.

three guys fall in...

Saturday morning...

ten local dudes standing on their rocks in the darkness in the tailout are not really amazed to see fifteen flashlights headed their direction...you know, to fish in the twelve available spots down there.

the out of town guys are shocked that they were firstwatered and vow not to let it happen again tomorrow.

they tie on their spoons but notice they still aren't using what the local guys are using, in fact they mock it as inferior and perhaps a bit hickish.

the local guys immediately begin hooking fish.

after hours of futility and close, I mean real close observation things kinda clear out....for about as long as it takes to run into town and back. lo and behold the out of town guys start to hook some fish too...

eight guys fall in, the guy who came closest to dying laughed the hardest

Sunday...

local guys offer coffee to the out of town guys as they show up to the hole first watered again.

everyone hooks fish, even the greenest of the greenhorns.

no one falls in

****

its also interesting to watch the dynamic change from an atmosphere of determined silence on saturday morning to one rivalling a frat party by sunday evening.

isn't there always one kid who's doing his own thing down there?

six foot rod, coffee can reel...

you hook a huge chinook and he tells you its an eight pound coho..

...birds nest on the first cast that takes an hour to pick out...

...loses only lure in the bushes behind him on his next cast...

hangs up a borrowed lure on his next but can't break it off because his thirty pound test won't break

...empties entire reels worth of line right in your formerly perfect drift...

...never gets it when you mock him mercilessly...

...leaves when someone gives him a charity fish....

***

to wrap things up here I also wanted to mention that I was guilty of leaving a few beer bottles behind saturday evening. I remembered I forgot them saturday night but when I went to get them sunday morning someone more conscientious than I had packed them out.

To that person I say thank you.

Monday I took a hefty bags worth of garbage out of there as penance.

\m/

You left out the part when after you hook your fish in the tailout, 8 of the guys from the head of the pool move down and fish in your pocket.

Originally posted by h2o:
Classic---although I can cut such a guy a *little* slack for being a conehead beginer. It's the moron that walks into the middle of a line-up of guys who are all free-spooling floats downstream and begins chucking a spinner that frosts my ass. Or vise versa. Or the guy that wades out chest deep in the tailout of a run that fish were previously traversing behind him in 3 feet of water. WTF.

Hey sol I know I hate those people but I am strictly a drift fisher I will occaionally play with the float fishing. You have to go the other way also Everybody is drift fishing then some guy walks up and starts free spooling floats........................That just irks me to death.

When in Rome.........................

Yeah, I did feel a touch remorseful for being so hard on the guy...

...a friend and I engaged him in a lengthy NFR conversation and he turned out to be fairly interesting. We tried to give him the lowdown on how people were catching fish but I'm pretty sure it won't stick.

Ha - Yep, ya gotta love it. Especially when the local tackle store is out of the lure they previously had a full arsenal of and probably never expected to sell. Helping the local ecconomy.

You're post read so well, I almost felt like I was there

Sometimes us out of towners have to get in on the game as well...

But when the fourth person goes in the drink. The same exact spot all of his buddies did. You have to sit back and wonder, or almost fall in yourself from uncontrollable laughter.

Anyone besides me notice a run on pixie spoons at Bob's?

File this:

When rearming for the next mornings fishing, thriftway restocks at night.

I like the part about the out of towners being shocked again that they were first watered.

Sometimes that spot can be pretty tricky, I have even come close to falling in.

Hi all

I'm a little confused. I've fished the the Solduc (for Salmon) for years and my observations are the opposite. Usually us die-hard out-of-towners are on the rocks/bank at legal fishing time and the the locals come in around 1st sun. It's nice to know some things do change in Forks.

As for the Pixies, that has been a good spoon over there for years along with a lot of others .

And the Grocery store has some of the best tackle selection around for rivers.

Let the rain keep comming. I'll be over there on the 30th and 31st if all goes right.

Say, which hole was that, I want to make sure I don't kill you of laughter too when I come back this week

Funny story.Glad I wasn't there.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Great post H2O......You made my lunch break . Sometimes we fish for a pleasant day on a beautiful river. Other days we fish for the pure spectacle of the event!

Oh man, h2o, that's gr8 stuff!! I started chuckling somewhere during Saturday and by the end I was laughing so hard the wife says, "WHAT are you laughing at?" I said, still laughing, "You gotta read this." She does the look-over-the-sholder thing and I scroll upon request. She chuckles politely at the end and goes about her previous business. It's got to be a fisherman thing. Anyway, thanks for the great write! It was terrific!!