Salmon Big & Plenty

Yesterdays outing with Darren had Norm frothing for more salmon, so we headed right back to the lake this morning, just praying for a similar day. The weather conditions were a carbon copy and I was pretty sure with this stable weather pattern that we would have a great day. Little did I know that it was to be a day chock full of surprises and all good ones too! Winds were light & variable with occasional gusts from the west blowing at 5 to 10 knots and the sun was with us all day. Air temps climbed to the upper 60’s and the water temps were anywhere from 43 degrees all the way up to as high as 51 in certain areas of the lake. We didn’t break the 1 minute hook up, but we were able to get into the first salmon in less than 15 minutes and then the games began. We literally had reels firing off about every 5 minutes and sometimes even less! There were at least 4 double headers throughout the day and plenty of action to keep anyone on their toes. It got to a point that we would see them on the sonar and actually call the rod that was going to go. Talk about confidence! After getting into about 10 or so fish, we decided to take a break in the action and refine some of Norms fly casting skills for a bonefish trip just around the corner. I guess this lasted about an hour or so and back we went to trolling flies for the silver bullets once again. If it wasn’t for all the floating debris on the surface, I think we could have caught even more than we actually did. Unfortunately, we spent a lot of the time checking the flies for weeds and debris and never were trolling at 100% by doing this. It did work in our favor several times though as we were hit while lifting the rods out of the holders and that was incredible. In fact, the largest salmon of the day hit while lifting the rod over some floating twigs. It hammered the fly when the direction was changed and immediately went to the air when it felt the sting of metal. Of course it had to hit the 5 weight and give Norm an even stronger battle, making the fight last even longer than usual. I don’t think Norm realized just how big this fish was until it leaped three feet out of the water in front of his face. His jaw dropped in awe and the reel just screamed uncontrollably as the salmon dove to the 80 foot depths we were now hovering over. I knew this was the biggest salmon he had ever battled and hoped he would be able to hold onto the beast long enough for it to come to the net. After several more leaps and runs, I was finally able to scoop it up and we were both delighted to see it come aboard. She was a fat, chrome silver 24 inch beauty. I’m sure if weighed, it would have been a five pounder. I took many pics of the fish and placed her in the live well beside the others. Talk about mutt & Jeff! She dwarfed all the others making them look more like bait. I thought that after this, it would be all downhill but soon found out differently when the reels began screaming once again. This was to carry into the afternoon pretty much the same as the morning and we actually lost track of all the fish being caught somewhere around 3 o’clock. Although we fished till about 5, we really never had any extended periods of dead time to worry about and that made for one of the best trips for salmon this season. I’m not sure what the final count was, but we knew it was at least 25 or more landed and at least 15 that were lost while on the way to the boat. There’s a definite possibility that we had close to 50 or more salmon on the line throughout the entire day and we left them while they were still biting too. It was such a fantastic day on the water that we both decided to release the 24 incher back to where she came from and replaced her with an 18 inch salmon shortly afterwards. All I can say is wow! Norm on the other hand may have to be locked up after today as his head is still spinning. Today was not great, it was insane!!