Monday June 26– Day 24 of trip – king salmon fishing in
Petersburg – by Erik
2nd try at the river run Salmon, the birth of a new
obsession
This is one of those fishing days that is just too magical to
really explain, but you must try anyway. I mean we’re catching wild river
Salmon in front of Alaskan mountain glaciers, while eagles and bears are
chattering and fighting over the same fish! Anyway, I started out the
morning still a little bitter that I have had paid guides for salmon now in BC
and AK and still hadn't caught even one myself. That changed very quickly this
morning. Shane and I returned much better prepared this day which really
isn't hard since the first salmon trip was thrown together in 15 minutes, with
hardware store advice, and we changed in the parking lot. We had waders
now, more lures, and heavier line all spooled, but still few clues as to how
you fish salmon. Shane says I look like a Patagonia advertisement.
Dads and sons wade out into the river trying not to find the
top of our waders and fill up like a bobber. We start into the casts, and
I have a fish on quickly. As I'm fighting it Shane ask how many casts was that
(thinking that he had about 1000 yesterday). I say, "about 4".
I pull it in, and it's my first salmon! It’s a smaller "Jack"
but a great start! :) Shane says I'll have to find something new to
gripe about because it can’t be “no salmon” anymore ;) Anyway...Since no
one else was catching fish I go ahead and catch my second "Jack"
Salmon pretty quickly after the first. Shane starts to ask me just how
I'm retrieving, my lure, and how I hold my tongue while retrieving. I'd
love to help, but it just seems to be something immeasurable like God wants me
to finally catch salmon. It really isn’t too much longer, and I hook onto
a BIG salmon. These fish peel line, and you just have to wear them full
out, hoping the line holds. It takes about 15 minutes of reel and fight
to do this, and I'm crazy ecstatic to finally put my trout net on him. Half of
him doesn't even fit! My son Matt has a similar long fight with an even
bigger fish, and he is getting advice from everywhere. Finally the big
fish peels off line to the end of the spool just as Shane is 10ft from it with
the net. That fish lives to tell the tail, and Matt needs a lot more new
line... Next Shane picks up another big salmon, probably by finally
following my advice (Hey, this is MY story!). He very wisely has Travis
help him to net it, and we have 4 on the stringers. A little time goes by,
and I start laying into my 4th hook set of the day on another monster.. I fight
this fish for probably even longer, say 20 minutes, or it felt that long.
It’s worn out all the way to shallow water. I decide that I can net this
one all myself, and the fish must have sensed that misplaced confidence.
When I go to raise my rod up and start forward with the net, I see my lure come
right loose! I dive at the fish as quick as I can with the tiny net and
come up with nothing but water in my waders. I said something you can't
in church. ;(
Later in the morning I finally break the boredom with a 5th
salmon hook set, and it’s ON! That fish ran with my line and lure towards
the rapids like it was a scalded dog. It stripped line as if no drag was
set whatsoever on my spinning reel. Not like any of the others.
When I mistakenly tried to slow the unspooling run by adding thumb pressure, it
quickly popped my 30# braid line like it was a child's bubblegum and went on
its merry way. One more salmon lesson, among many to come. A local
fisherman named John said that was a BIG fish just seeing its huge tail as it
flapped past. 30# easy... I tell John that these salmon of theirs
go from Wow!, to Dang Impressive!, to Oh Holy Heck!! very quickly. He
replies back, "Just wait until you get one that really wants to
fight!" :)
I believe this morning was my best fishing day ever. I
love this chase! We gorged on huge grilled salmon steak sandwiches for a
fisherman's lunch with just 1/2 a fish. These beasts make trout look
undernourished and compared to Texas catfish those surrender on the first
bullet. We actually didn't even get a photo of the 4 fish caught today
before the knife, but believe me they were huge like Shane's here from the first
evening! Probably mine was bigger.... really...:)
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| Eriks favorite picture, for some reason..... :) |
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| salmon for dinner, lunch, breakfast, road shacks and sending some home! |
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