Bulkley Double Double

This morning I woke up at the crack of too early, rolled out of bed and drove throught the darkness and smoke to the other side... .. .. Smithers.

I got to the Bulkley river where a couple people were casting spoons in the run above where I began my day. I put together my spey rod, threw on my favorite weighted black and blue intruder fly and started working the water. I had only been there for about half an hour, slowly working my way down a nice long run, when a couple arrive. She goes to the run upstream and he... ..low holes me. I wasn't too happy but I wasnt going to let it ruin my day. At least he was moving down the run, so I followed (at a distance). He was moving a bit faster than I was, finished fishing the run and joined his fishing buddy up stream. No sooner had he left and I had my fly slammed hard like a freight train followed by a big steelhead exploding out the water. After a great battle with lots of heart stopping acrobatics I managed to land the beauty. I snuck a quick pic (hard to do by yourself) and sent it on its way.

As the day went on I managed to hook three coho (two of which I landed) and another steelhead (which I lost) all in that same run. My spey rod got a good workout, my new Monic GSP running line is fantastic and I cant say enough good things about my galvan reel. LOVE those reels. #galvanreels .. sponsor me and I will gladly promote your reels everywhere I go. Oh and while i'm at it.. #monicflylines ?

Things died down and I explored up stream which yielded no fish. I went back to the first run and thought I woud give it one more sweep through before I drive home. The guy from earlier and his wife were there and working there way through. I let them go and followed behind and pulled another steelhead out behind them! This time he came over and snapped a quick pic for me. Nice guy. They came up from Oregon and had been fishing the river for 5 days with only a couple coho to show for it.

The day ended with a double double for me. Two steelhead landed and two coho landed.

Socks

Its been a long time but they opened sockeye for retention on the Fraser River.

Disclaimer: I don't consider this a "fishing" trip, it's more of a harvest. This is due to the methods used which im not going to get in to, other than its bottom bouncing and the colour at the terminal end has no impact on the catching.

Well I happened to be in town so I took advantage of trying to harvest a few fish for the freezer. The first few outings were unsuccessful, with a few sparse hookups and no fish landed. The fourth outing was yhe one and it took me under an hour to get my limit. The bar was busy but everyone was catching fish. It was nice to see people getting along as the combat style fishing can be frustrating. And really noce to be able to put a couple fish in the freezer.

A quick tip that helped with my landing ratio (went from 3 hookups and none landed to 3 for 3) was changing to a sickle style hook. Those hooks weren't popping out so easily. I was using a 1/0 size which worked great.