Anyone know of a good fishing report and forum for river fishing?
While most were out chasing salmon, bass, or perch over the weekend, I hooked into about 80 wild trout between 8 and 24 inches. Half of those (mainly the larger half) were from an Olympic Pen. river and the other from the Middle Fork Snoqualmie by my house.
2 out of 3 fish I caught on the OP were dollies/bull trout (char) - 2 being about 4lbs. The OP wild rainbows were very impressive. They would jump about 2 or 3 feet out of the water several times and even the smaller 14inchers would strip out line (while heading up stream...). The 16 to 20+ inchers were heart stopping. A couple simply spanked me and my ultra light gear and broke my line after a few seconds - I had to switch to 6lb line.
Each night I kept my 2 fish limit and shared fresh trout with my buddies. They were a little big for my usual 'trout on a stick' method of cooking at camp, but with some improvising, we had flavorful fish that melted in your mouth.
On the snoqualmie, the fish were smaller, and less powerful, but they had plenty of spirit - making multiple cart-wheel type jumps each time. This time, I got my 2 personal best for this river - a 14incher and a 16incher. Very beautiful fish (all released of course - but I know where to find them
Of the group of guys I was with, 2 of us mostly used spinning gear, and the other 2 were dedicated fly fisherman. By the end of each trip, we were fighting over the spinning rods... But to be fair, we did not fish the evening hatch on the Snoqualmie. I can't keep the trout off my dry fly on that river during the evening.
Oh, and just for the record, oncy my buddy gets his boat this Friday - we'll be out there chasing those salmon too