Alarm went of at 3:30. I arrived in Orting at 0-dark-thirty, greeted by pouring rain, thunder, and lightning-- almost turned back due to the lightning, but glad I didn't. I had a really nice honey hole to myself for the first hour of light. I caught one immediately when day broke on a pink corky/yarn. Then from 6-10 am the fish were completely lock-jawed. I threw everything I had at them... dick nites, all manner of corkies, jigs both under bobber and twitched. All the fish wanted to do was move up. And there were A LOT of pinks on the move. They would roll right in front of you and bump your line when a group pushed through-- I accidently fowl hooked two and sent them on their way.

Around 10 something pretty cool happened-- I was in zombie mode due to the lack of sleep and fish action. I was reeling in at the end of a retrieve, when about 5 feet from shore one of the fins right under the water made a quick B-line for my two small orange corkies. The fish chomped my corkies right as they were about to leave the water; almost jumping to do so. It hooked itself right on the tip of the nose. I basically flipped it onto shore before it knew what happened. Brightest fish of the day-- a little 2-3 pound hen.

After that the bite at least had a pulse. I got two more (reaching the four fish limit) on orange corkies by 11:30. The two I caught later in the day were pretty dark, but I kept them. Tomorrow I'll set my smoker to "so overdone it all tastes the same" mode!

PS: Like in past seasons you have to get a parking pass for river access. This year it's at the local sporting goods store (cool place!) and it costs $10. I got my pass around 7 pm yesterday and scouted the river. I did get one yesterday on a pink Worden spoon drifted right about a set of rapids.

Photo: Terrible auto-photo when I got home. The fish closest to the camera is about 3 seconds from falling off of that stick onto my floor-- splattering blood everywhere!

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