Yea, two weekends in a row! Well sort of anyway, we were able to get out for an hour or so. We launched at Gardner on the Skagit in Burlington and set up for an uphill troll just upstream of the RR Bridge. We ran a variety of Wiggle Warts off of 4 rods. The current was running pretty heavy so I added ½ ounce of lead to the inside lines and 1 ounce of lead to the outside lines with about 6’ of 10# fluorocarbon leader. We made one run along the dike with one drive by then decided to checkout a couple different areas downstream. Moving down to the flood control gate area we put the same gear over the side and again started an uphill troll. We hooked a nice fish but it ended up swimming under a log. If I free-spooled the reel the fish would come up and break the surface but whenever we actually fought the fish it would get stuck just under the boat in about 10-11 feet of water. Eventually the fish popped off and we were able to get our gear back. Time about up we made one more pass with a couple drive bys but no hook-ups and headed back up river towards the launch On plug color; as noted earlier we were running a variety of plug colors. Purple with green tiger stripes, pink and purple, pink and black, a pastel colored plug with purple white and orange and a chrome and green plug. The pastel colored plug with purple white and orange was the hot plug of the day and accounted for all the hits.

While running back to the launch we slowed down and altered our course for a boat that I thought was fighting a fish. I ended up cutting across a shallow gravel bar (wasn’t there last time through…) and chewed up the prop. Worst part is that it turned out that they were pulling on a snag. Oh well, to loosely borrow a line from Harry in Days of Thunder and my old racing days “That’s Fishin’ (and rubbin son, is racin’)”. All that said we had a great time and didn’t even have to clean fish when we got home. We did have the opportunity to talk with fellow WashingtonLaker, Norm, he is a bit of a legend here on the Skagit and has been consistently boating coho this season. BTW Norm, love your Lund…

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