Dead humpies everywhere. After not being able to hit any salmon for three weeks I got deliverance. Today I walked well over a mile of the upper river in waders, LITERALLY crawling over, under and between huge slippery and loose rocks, giant jagged boulders and rotten log bridges. After a couple of coho and a pink followed my lure without biting (of course), I was getting anxious. At the end of the line I came to a huge, deep pool with a perfect amount of current; last chance at a silver. Not five or six casts in I feel a fish, set the hook and proceed to watch the salmon flash and roll downstream of me only to invisibly shoot upstream seventy feet over two sets of rapids at twenty miles per hour, roll and shake HARD a few times before I eased a giant hook nosed buck coho back into the pool. Sooo hard to keep track of these things while fighting them, especially when they expend all of their life force in one run. I tailed the thing and decided to take him home since he was still decently bright and was my first not-moldy coho ever. Turns out, even the silvers with a little color can still have great quality meat. I love these fish. My drag was practically whistling. The fish measured 29 inches and weighed 10.5 lbs after bleeding and gutting. Not bad for a river full of coho that don't bite.

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