Back to the Stilly, I had been watching the USGS gauge on the Stillaguamish in Arlington and the river was dropping quickly so on the way home from a work appointment in Snohomish County I decided to make a few casts. About 1 second into the first cast I went bendo and spent the next 10 minutes pulling on a Chinook. The fish was hooked in the corner of its mouth but I was fishing 8# fluorocarbon and it self released in the gravel before I could officially call it caught. I retied and pounded the river for another ½ hour but was coming up empty when I snagged and lost my gear. While standing in the river I retied, changing to 12# and also changed corky colors.

Two or three casts into the new setup a fish picks it up and heads straight for the skinny water on the gravel bar and was gone. 5 to 10 minutes later my rod is down solid again and I’m thinking fish on, no…I have a branch, I would wind up tight to a solid snag with no give. I mess with it for a bit and then figure that I will just break the snag loose and call it a day. About the time I wound down tight to break it off a fish blows out of the water. I think that I must have hooked the fish on the edge of a multiple branched snag and it was tangled up in the branches. I worked it for a while longer and it finally swam out of the snag. While the fish heads down the river I work my way out of the river onto dry land and fight the fish from the beach. We play tug-o-war for quite a while and just when I get it up into the gravel the leader pops. Upon examination my leader was very abraded and broke in the middle. Although I don’t usually mind loosing a fish this was a hard one and I was pretty disappointed.

I was fishing 4 feet of 8-12 pound P-Line fluorocarbon tied to a black # 4 hook. My corkies were black, metallic green and flame red with sparkles. I also used black, white or salmon colored yarn. It was a fun couple hours of fishing but I was disappointed to be going home empty handed.

Toni

9/2/2010 9:41:00 PM

Nice report. It must have been a good feeling hooking those.

rseas

9/2/2010 10:42:00 PM

Thanks, The afternoon was a blast...except, while hiking in I slipped and took a nasty tumble down a small hill. By the time I got to the river I was so sore that I was having a hard time balancing in the river and I could not even bend over. My 50 year old bones don't fall as well as they used to.

code3daddy

9/2/2010 11:38:00 PM

Where do you park and fish? I have never been up there and would like to try.

'OL GREY DOG

9/3/2010 6:46:00 AM

i HATE 50ish year old bones

rseas

9/3/2010 6:49:00 AM

When fishing the Stillaguamish don’t follow reports and limit yourself to one spot. For salmon fishing there are 6 or 7 good access points, scout the river and learn the holes. The portion of the river below Arlington that is open to salmon fishing is just a short swim from the salt and in my experience the fishery is heavily influenced by the tides. The open area is not necessarily holding water. Although some areas fish better than others I believe that for the most part the fish are just moving through. If one hole is not producing, move to the next until you find the fish. The Stillaguamish is not a hatchery stream; the fishery is for wild fish or unclipped Native American hatchery fish. That said it is not like fishing some of our popular hatchery streams such as the Samish or Skokomish. The fish will not be concentrated in one area and there are times when you have to go looking for the fish. Get a map, go exploring, say a prayer to the fish gods and good luck.

dogfish7

9/4/2010 2:39:00 AM

You usually post pics Sir, I gotta see that Chinook!

Matt

9/4/2010 4:40:00 PM

I absolutely hate P-lines flourocarbon leaders. They are crap and I have had NOTHING but problems with them. I have since switched back to Maxima Ultragreen or Chameleon and have been much happier with no broken leaders.

rseas

9/7/2010 9:36:00 AM

About the chinook and no picture, often when fishing by myself I don’t get an opportunity to shoot pictures. Although I enjoy having a fishing buddy solo drift fishing is my time and I get pretty focused. That combined with the fact that I had fallen while walking in and my general inability to move I didn’t want to try to get the camera out of the back of my vest while fighting a fish. Last year I also caught a chinook sometime with in a few days of the coho opener. There is a number of chinook in the system. In fact, if the tribal research trap is still in the river at the diversion dam walk up and check it out. Just before the river went out last week there were a number of chinook in the trap. Tribal biologists are trapping Stilly chinook for their hatchery/chinook recovery program. A couple three weeks ago if you sat and watched the bull nose of water flowing over the diversion dam you would see quite a few chinook trying to swim/jump over the diversion dam.

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