Fished the Cowlitz at the barrier dam with some friends. We were standing in the water ready to go when the clock registered an hour before daylight. Started the day off drifting glow corkies and immediately started getting hits. One of the friends I was with brought in a Coho or two on the glow corkies as well as a native Chinook (released). I hooked into one fish that came off after about 10 seconds and then hooked up with another on the glow corkies. Ended up being a wild Chinook buck (probably around 12 or 13lbs), which was promptly released without pictures. The early morning bite was really good but slowed a bit once the sun was up.

After the light had come up enough we all switched to free drifting eggs. I'm very new to that technique and am still getting used to what a bite feels like, but with my 9.5' Shimano Clarus drift rod in hand, I was able to clearly feel one good nibble on the eggs, reeled down, and then set the hook for all it was worth knowing that I had a lot of play in my rod and mono mainline. Anyway, I drove that hook home (through the jawbone I think) and proceeded to play out a nice Coho of about 8lbs that was just starting to darken. It was a lot of fun fighting that fish on that rod with 10lb leader and was also good to get a solid feel for what that soft egg bite is like. The friends I was with were able to bring in about 3 more Coho between them drifting eggs as well.

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