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So, this is a skunk report, but I got a lot of good info in the process and have decided to share with you all. Also, this report has absolutely nothing to do with fishing the barrier dam, so if you are like me and like to avoid barrier, read on. I spent the morning and early afternoon fishing downstream of I-5 and tried all of the usual chinook gear without so much as a bump from anything. I started drifting white glow corkies in a deep hole, then I switched to a peach glow corky in the same hole, then I switched to eggs under a bobber still in the same hole. Nothing.
I think it was around this point that I pulled my trout rod out to briefly break up the boredom. After C&R with two smolts and a cutthroat on a size 1 50/50 Dick Nite, I went back to salmon fishing. If I remember correct, I started up again by floating a 1/8oz pink shrimp imitation jig, and somewhere along the way I spent some time free drifting eggs as well. Up until this point I hadn't gotten any interest on anything I was trying for the chinook, but I had started to see a good amount of activity in the soft water on the far side of the river.
Sort of as a last resort, I tied on a 1/2oz blue and silver Kastmaster and fired it clear across the river to see if anything was interested. My technique was to let it sink completely to the bottom and then bring it back with an extremely slow retrieve. The retrieve was just fast enough to get the lure kicking, but otherwise it was swinging along naturally in the current along the bottom. I think it was within about my first three casts doing this that I got a very strong hit at about the point where the lure would have been crossing the seam from the slow water to the faster water. I now finally had some hope that I might get something. I kept casting at this spot and got another hit, but couldn't get anything to stick. Figuring that I would let that spot rest for a bit, I started casting into another hole and got a solid take from what appeared to be a small jack or a big trout, probably in the 16 to 18" range. I now knew that I was on to something and went back to casting at my previous spot.
Not long after starting up there I hooked into something good that stayed deep as I brought it through the current to my side of the river. I was able to get this one close enough to see that it was a decent fish, either a jack chinook, an enormous trout, or possibly an early summer steelhead (it looked more trout shaped than salmon shaped). Whatever the case, I unfortunately saw its final headshake and quick farewell as it too threw the hook on me.
I was definitely on to something though, so I went back down to the hole I started the day in and sure enough, within probably 10 minutes of casting I again hooked into something. This one also stayed deep, but had some good headshakes to liven things up. As I worked my way back towards shore, the fish took off on a vicious run and I regret to say that yet again the hook pulled free.
So all in all, it was a great learning day. The difference was like night and day from everything I tried previously to finally switching over to the Kastmaster. And lest you worry, I did actually land a fish on the Kastmaster using this same technique, but it was just a ~14" Pikeminnow.
And now if you have made it this far I will offer two more points. First, of the three fish that I actually had on with the Kastmaster (the one that maybe was a Steelhead, the Pikeminnow and the one that popped off during the run), the only one I landed was the Pikeminnow, and I think that a part of the reason why is because I whipped another solid hook set after it took the lure, which I did not do with the other two. I'm still kicking myself over that, but using the Kastmaster in this situation was surprisingly similar to fishing a jig off the beaches of Puget Sound for salmon. Often times the fish will hit hard and you can easily forget to set the hook in the midst of the fight, but I have found time and again when using jigs or jig-like lures that you HAVE to set the hook again after the initial hit, no matter how strong it may have been; especially with barbless hooks. Second, I am going to try replacing my straight siwash hooks with a sickle siwash in a slightly larger size in hopes that they will hold better.
Tight lines!
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