Tony Buzolich
08-21-2016, 10:13 AM
For the last couple months the water on the Feather has been running at 11,000 CFS. This has brought a load of salmon in much earlier than expected and they're stacked up at the hatchery in Oroville. The problem is the season didn't open till the middle of July and the bulk of the fish have already gone by.
So when Jim calls me and says "let's go fish salmon" we're basically trying for stragglers of the early run, or possibly some of the early fall run which hasn't gotten here yet. But we go anyway and yes I did get a good grab using a Kwikfish wrapped in sardine in twenty feet of water. No I didn't land it, the hook straightened out.
We work our way upriver to the rock dam and see all this choice striper water and it's just too much to pass up. A couple of casts and we've both got fish on. Nothing big but they're all fun.
We drop down and try one more spot for salmon again without luck and decide to call it a day. As we get back toward the dock we decide to make one quick pass at a known striper spot before going in. I had just tied a massive new fly the night before and needed to Christen it. 4/0 jig hook with extra large chrome dumbbell eyes. Very heavy even on my 9 wt.
It's already 11:00 AM and we're not too serious about fishing but it's too good of a spot to ignore before quitting the day. We set up the drift, I make one cast, and wham! I'm hooked up solid to a nice 14 pounder. Quickly back into the water and we make another pass and Jim hooks up to a nice 8 pounder. Two beautiful fish, five minutes apart, at 11:00, after we basically quit fishing all morning.
I love fishing salmon like this :) Tony
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/002_zpstkfnvu3z.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/002_zpstkfnvu3z.jpg.html)
So when Jim calls me and says "let's go fish salmon" we're basically trying for stragglers of the early run, or possibly some of the early fall run which hasn't gotten here yet. But we go anyway and yes I did get a good grab using a Kwikfish wrapped in sardine in twenty feet of water. No I didn't land it, the hook straightened out.
We work our way upriver to the rock dam and see all this choice striper water and it's just too much to pass up. A couple of casts and we've both got fish on. Nothing big but they're all fun.
We drop down and try one more spot for salmon again without luck and decide to call it a day. As we get back toward the dock we decide to make one quick pass at a known striper spot before going in. I had just tied a massive new fly the night before and needed to Christen it. 4/0 jig hook with extra large chrome dumbbell eyes. Very heavy even on my 9 wt.
It's already 11:00 AM and we're not too serious about fishing but it's too good of a spot to ignore before quitting the day. We set up the drift, I make one cast, and wham! I'm hooked up solid to a nice 14 pounder. Quickly back into the water and we make another pass and Jim hooks up to a nice 8 pounder. Two beautiful fish, five minutes apart, at 11:00, after we basically quit fishing all morning.
I love fishing salmon like this :) Tony
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/buzolich/002_zpstkfnvu3z.jpg (http://s22.photobucket.com/user/buzolich/media/002_zpstkfnvu3z.jpg.html)