Double not nice. I'm goin' to bed.

Poor Danny...in his defense, that 6# hatchery fish on the Satsop that took him fifteen minutes to reel in the last twelve feet was the biggest six pounder I've ever seen.

Fish on...

Todd

Its not the size of the fish in the fight...

Doc when I put the bend in the rod with the fish downstream of me like that, it better be because there is something that I can't get below...... Get the F downriver of your fish.

I've caught fish in that whole too.... You can get below the fish. Fun to let it run like that, but c'mon, if puttin the heat to it is what you want...... don't fight the river

word

Not condoning the dude's overall fish fighting technique.... just using the vid as a decent demo of how to make a rod bend.

The DIRECTION one makes it bend is even more important, esp when the fish is below you in current. Getting sideways and parallel to a fish in current is obviously the most advantageous position. Stepping down river is advised whenever feasible, but folks should remember to take line as they go! The biggest mistake I see is folks walking downriver too slow and not shortening the leash as they go... they're literally walking the dog down the river.... and making ZERO net gain! And losing precious landing beach with every step! Eventually there comes a point in the battle where one must simply stand his ground.

On river right, the only way to go is to pull LOW and to the RIGHT. As much as is humanly possible... as in 95-99% of the time... the rod should be angled low and right!

When fighting a BIG fish in the current, one of the least appreciated concepts is the mechanics of "ferrying". If you tether any long object in the current it will passively maintain its position in the flow as long as it aligns itself axially with the current ( nose pointed straight upriver at 12:00).

It can also be made to move passively crosscurrent by ferrying. If that long object is somehow pointed off-axis to the flow, even by the tiniest amount (11:55 or 12:05), it will start to ferry cross-current.

In this case, by pulling to the left, one points the fish's nose to its right toward heavier flow, causing it to passively ferry to its right. And when the fish adds extra propulsion with a tail thrust, it's driven that much stronger to its right. This maneuver only encourages the fish to move further out into swifter current.... which only pushes it even further downstream. NOT GOOD if your goal is to gain line.

By pulling to the right, the fish will passively ferry toward the bank... AND when it thrusts its tail, it will actively swim into softer shallower flows, water where one actually can either gain ground MUCH more easily... OR better yet, allow the fish to simply beach itself.

I've used this technique to single-handedly beach dozens of big kings up to 70+ without the aid of a net or an assistant. It works!

If Vedder wasn't so f'n astute with his fishy observations I would have just let that post pass.

But he IS…. so I COULDN'T...

Even if it did take 3 years for me to finally pick up on it.

Better late than never.

Sorry, Danny.

Still laffin'

Blast from the past (where the HELL did 10 years go anyway?)

Orygun 60, fo'sho!

And while in a decidedly B&W mode, may as well share this o'l boot as well…

71 on the wall Kenai & 52 Chehalis with picture on the wall. In broodstocking many bucks in the 40 plus bracket over the years on the Satsop but the biggest I could not get to the bank and finally broke 40 lb Maxima. Best guess was 60 plus and it was East Fork Satsop. Oh, it was a hen.

Low 50lb buck...Hump...Got some pics and released the beast many years ago. Saw the fish swim past just after hooking up and still remember the surreal look of something so massive in comparison to all the other salmon and steelhead we encounter in our travels.

I don’t think either of these broke 50 but nice nookies. My biggest in the salt was released. Sebastes and I are certain it was more then 50. In the Kenai, I have caught a handful of 50 plus with a 62 as my biggest, but so has anyone who fished it a lot back then.
Looking for a photo of my buddies 72 we got in the Kenai way back when dinosaurs roamed the land





This was a 62 caught from a 16 foot Jon Boat on the Kenai by three, at the time novice Kenai anglers. We damn near swamped the boat when too many leaned over to see it in the water.

In saltwater my buddy Don got a 52 in the morning- just 2 pounds short of our groups record (in BC). Good luck held...and he got a 56 in the afternoon. 108 lbs, 2 fish, same day, from a 17' whaler, trolling mono with 2 oz of lead on 10 wt sage rods.

At least for Puget Sound hatchery Chinook a 30 pounder has become the new 50 or even 60# fish.

During the mark selective Chinook fisheries in Puget Sound during 2012 and 2013 WDFW port samplers measured more than 13,000 hatchery Chinook without handling a single fish larger than a meter in length (all less than 40 inches).

Equally of concern was the fact that the median size was roughly 28.5 inches (there were as many fish smaller than 28.5 and larger than 28.5). Just 40 years ago a Chinook jack for Puget Sound rivers was defined as any Chinook less than 28 inches long now nearly 1/2 of the returning adults are smaller than what once were jacks and many of the jacks would never be a legal fish in the salt (they are less than 22 inches long).

While the Puget Sound hatchery Chinook may be the most extreme all the region's Chinook populations are experiencing this shrinking phenomenon.

Curt

Heaviest King 61.5, from up north.

On the Snohomish system, none of these are from the last 10 years (OK, the whitefish was).

King 35#
Steelhead 30+
Coho 20#
Chum 24#

Whitefish, Can't remember the weight, we thought it was a small steelhead during the fight, Craigo took a pic.

Yep.... we livin' in the era of the maxi-jack.

I mean REALLY... how many folks caught a bonafide king while fishin for spring kings?

Interesting that, at least at the hatcheries, WDFW used to take tons of scales, FL, and sex of returns on an annual basis. There should be a very long-term data set of length at age.

What this gets at is that "shrinking" Chinook and even coho should not be any sort of surprise or news. Coupled with oceanographic conditions we should have a pretty good idea about change over time, effects of El Nino, and so on.

We have basically turned Chinook from a big fish that spawned in the largest rivers to essentially a piscivorous, creek spawning chum. Get them into the 10-15 pound range as age 4 and we can have the Kennedy Creek Chinook fishery in the Fall as a warm-up for the chum.