fished the sky around sultan/monroe for the first time since it got blown out. flow was around 3000. lots of dark fish jumping all over but no chromers. didnt get any hits for the 3 hours i fished. tried spinners, warts, hotshots, drifted eggs, and jigs. even tried old faithful, the buzzbomb. no luck. there not biting. anyone else been out on the snoho or sky yet?

I fished the sky below sultan in my sled this morning. Landed 3 chromers and lost 3 or 4 others. There were lots of darkies rolling around though. We caught our fish on eggs, some other guys next to us had the same success on d'nites.

Yes, fished the lower Sno yesterday evening just below Thomas Eddy and the water was pretty heavy still. Some fish rolling, one fish on between the 3 of us. Today (tuesday) fished the lower Sky and saw very few fish rolling and not a fish touched a hook? Need to go back to school I guess? (My wife is really wondering if I am really fishin!). Used so much different stuff it will take me a week to clea up. Better luck to ya.

Fished the Sky near Sultan 10-3-00 AM. My first time down since the river had gone banzai, filling to the brim and washing away the stumps, dead salmon, and all of the accumulated garbage from the hot summer’s beach picnic use…and it all went rushing down to the Everett Bay. It was nice to have a clean river bank to start from this morning, with no malodorous salmon carcasses here and there. There appeared to be a few silvers rolling, but I never got a good look at any to see if they were fresh fish just run up or tired salmon that had already been up this far for awhile. The water was about 1.5’ higher than the last time I fished it, and you could see where it had pushed big stumps down the gravel bars at the high water mark and they had dug big trenches into the gravel like bulldozers. The water was already running pretty clear, just a little tinge of green color to keep the fish in the biting mood. Low fog till 9, then clear as a bell…no wind. There were several sleds on the river this morning, one of which I saw offload several 3 to 4# fish at the launch, which I would imagine were silvers. I started fishing in the fast deep slot I like at the upper end of the hole, just above another guy already there that was throwing what looked like a spinner on a spinning rod. I made probably a dozen casts with my usual small corky/three colors yarn tufts/small piece of sand shrimp when I hooked another 10 pound or so chrome steelhead. This fish was something else…it made the traditional head long, line stripping run across in front of me, which of course was followed by the obligatory end-over-end Minute Man Missile jump in an attempt to throw the hook. This is where it gets interesting now…the fish apparently ran right back at me after the jump and I would have bet a $100 I saw my corky come flying out of his mouth and that I had lost him. I even gave a few terse words to whoever would listen and whipped my tip and slack line to the water in disgust at losing a nice steely like that, when all of a sudden my pole tip rips around and line starts peeling off against the drag and the steelhead leapt into the air again followed by several more jumps with powerful runs up and down the river. I finally got him settled down and proceeded to back him down the hole into slower, easier to manage current…just holding him firm in the current for around another 5 minutes till he was only 20’ or so off shore and then he suddenly came off…without nary a headshake or any other reason to blame the sudden disengagement. I thanked my good fortune for the encounter and continued on fishing…only to catch and release one steely smolt after that. It was a beautiful birthday morning for me though…awesome. Back at the parking lot I saw a couple fishermen with two silvers, one fish probably two pounds and the other maybe four pounds and both pretty dark…not bright by any stretch.

A well-written and interesting story!

It occurs to me that I've lost many fish in a similar fashion, and would venture a piece of advice, at the risk of sounding like a know-it-all (which I most definately am not). When you are "holding" a fish, it is resting, facing upstream and taking in oxygen. Don't rest it--wrestle with it! Fight the fish every inch of the way--on a flyrod, I try to always be either letting line out or taking line in.

I fished the Sky again today below sultan and put 4 fish in the boat. A little slower than yesterday, maybe because it was about a foot lower. One was chrome, the others were darker but not too bad. lots of fish.