Slaying The Salmon

Well, the maiden voyage finally arrived today as my wife Christiane & I headed to the lake for a day of salmon fishing. I knew an early arrival wouldn’t be necessary with the cold nights still upon us, so we began our day around 9:30 instead. We were closer to 10:00 by the time the lines were in the water and the game was on! The surface water temps were just above 38 degrees at the start and I knew I would have to work for each & every fish today. Fortunately, the air temps were to reach 48 degrees with sunshine and this would definitely help the cause. Unfortunately however, the winds were coming from the N/E at about 10 knots and that would prove to feel quite chilly. It took a little longer than I expected before we had the first reel go off & the fish was gone. A drive by on the first hit, crap! The next time it fired however, it did stay pinned and a chunky little salmon was soon in the net. I noticed a pattern beginning with both attacks coming on the deep lines and the next hit was no different. I decided to concentrate in deeper water around 20 to 25 feet and dropped the sinking lines a little more. We continued to pick a fish here & there for a while and all on the deep lines. The long lines just didn’t seem to be working and that wasn’t surprising seeing as how all the bait was pressed on the bottom, offshore. It wasn’t until around noon and the major that the action really heated up. While trying to eat a sandwich, we had all 4 reels fire off simultaneously. Talk about a fire drill! Ironically, we somehow managed to land all of the salmon and had quite a laugh afterwards. Throughout the afternoon hours we had many hits, misses and landed fish with a few more doubles as well. A few fish were caught in shallower water, but the bulk of them came from offshore, still in deeper water around baitfish balls. We even managed to land a few small rainbows and browns with the largest brown going about 2 pounds. Considering that it was our first trip of the season, we did remarkably well and decided to call it a day after another double header around 3:00 in the afternoon. We had managed to locate fish in deeper water allowing us to land close to 25 with several others either lost or just missed all together. The water has a long way to go before it warms up to where I like around 47 degrees and I can’t wait to get back for more of this tremendous fly rod fishing!