Tell us how's fishing in your neck of the woods these days. I usually fish from shore on a river in Port Alberni for Sockeye this time of year and so far nothing. Way too warm, and the rivers are low.
Hi Chris,
I thought I would respond here so we don't hijack king kabonos' thread.
We had a good run and fair fishing for the Springers this year, the main rivers fished well for a couple of weeks and when they died out we spent about three weeks in the mountains fishing one of the larger tributaries(Southfork of the Clearwater), it was tough fishing as the water was very low and warm(as it is/was throughout the western region-as you know). The fish bit very lightly and you would lose 9 out of 10 fish, but that actually made it fun, we have a two fish limit on that river and most fish landed are hooked pretty deep so you don't turn many back that are legal fish-it can make for a short day fishing when the bite is good. We didn't bring home a lot of fish from up there but we had fun and got all we really need/want.
It will be a couple of months before our fishing starts getting good again(other than warm water species and such), our fall Chinook run is looking good so far and should be here around the end of August, same with steelhead. The Fall Chinook will fish well in Sept. and early Oct., the steelhead we prefer in Oct/Nov., the larger fish start showing up around the middle of Oct. and then it gets to be fun-our better fish will top 20 lbs. and on light tackle it is great.
I know exactly what you mean by low and warm water-it makes it tough and in your neck of the woods it can be a lot worse than where we fish. Quite often when you have the shorter streams flowing into the salt and warm water conditions it creates what is called a "thermal block", the fish will lay off shore in the cooler ocean water and on the edge of the outflowing warmer water waiting for conditions to change before they enter the fresh water-if you get a good storm(that isn't looking too likely) they will move up and travel fast. If you are there when they make a move it can be fantastic fishing-if you are behind them you might as well stay home. If conditions remain as they are the fish will move up in small numbers and it can be poor fishing all the way through. Where we are we know what the fish are doing every day, we are 465 miles from the salt and there are 8 dams with fish ladders and counting stations with the fish movements published daily(some even have cams so we can pick out our fish before they get here
--).I would attach some pics from the Southfork trip but our main computer crashed and I hadn't backed those files up yet(hope the Computer Doc can save them).
Sure hope this weather breaks earlier than forecast-112° F today and forecast is for at least another two weeks over the 100° mark
-dang mess if you ask me!Pat
