11-08-04 - Several Male Coho Salmon spar and jockey for position in the sanctuary...lots of fish spawning in this protected area.

Doesn't look like they've passed any fish since last Tuesday.

Some updated numbers on the Trophy board as well.

Horlick was DOA on arrival. We headed way downstream.

How could I expect the first Coho of the day to be the best? Other than the raw nose, this fish is in PRIME coloration!

Another Buck that fell for the small orange eggs. Randy had landed this one earlier in the morning!

The Orange Egg is an equal opportunity offender, snatchin' both the bucks and this hen.

One more dark, spent Hen coho rounds out my four fish total.

11-08-04 - COHORAMA?!

Waters Fished: Root River
Fish Caught: 4
Outing Date: 11-08-04
Weather: Cloudy
Air Temp: Cold (40's)
Water Temp: N/A
Water Level: getting low, about 30 cfs
Water Color: Muddy, visibility about 12"
Fish Species: Coho Salmon
Pattern Fished: Eggs
Pattern Color: Orange, as usual, was the big winner.
Fishing Quality: Good++ once we found the fish.

It pretty much seems to be a recently recurring theme that when we got fish the Root, we have to "find the fish". Seems that if you want to fish Lincoln, you need to do so at the first legal crack of civil dawn, aka. 30 minutes before sunrise. By the time I got to the Root on this particular day, there were PLENTY of fish in the SANCTUARY and not-a-one downstream. It's probably worth noting that the only kings still in the river at this point appeared to be some NASTY, I mean mostly WHITE kinda nasty, that were in the Wier. Not even worth mentioning as an "encountered" species for this day. From my point of view, the King run is DONE barring any late runners. There weren't many Coho in the wier either from what I could gather, so I'm betting that run is on the downhill slide.

I had plans to meet with Randy, who was having a better day upstream. However, most of the fish had been pounded by him and he was interested to look further upstream. So after shooting some updates at the wier, I met up with Randy at Horlick Dam.

We got in and started looking around...flows are back to "low" now so we had to look around. I found a couple coho in a deep bend pool, and a couple more downstream. All were pretty skittish and lethargic, none very interested in the fly.

After wasting time in Quarry Park, we ended up going back down to where Randy had fished all morning. This turned out to be a good plan...

I got on the water before Randy and started looking; at first I saw nothing other than a ratty, beat-up old male coho holding below a riffle. Randy walked up and pointed me upstream....behold, massive quantities of spawning Cohos. Ok, not massive quantities, but enough that we'd have some fun!

Randy I and simply worked 'em over real good. I managed a bright male that was simply perfect (if you overlooked the raw nose)....sent the skunk packin'.

It was getting cold and we contemplated calling it a day. I went upstream and that's where everything came together. I was confronted with a pod of cohos that were willing to hit just about anything.

In short order I had FAIR HOOKED EVERY FISH holding in the riffles. Some I landed and released to the deeper water below, while others managed to get away and run upstream into the brush and overhanging logs. It was simply amazing, and Randy and I had Colonial all to ourselves. It's worth mentioning that the 2nd buck I landed happened to be a fish Randy had landed earlier in the day. How do we know? Randy's fly was sitting in the roof of it's mouth! Apparently it had snapped off at shore when Randy was trying to get the fly out...he tried when I landed it again and eventually got frustrated to the point of shouting, "Oh just take the DAMN FLY...you can HAVE IT!" before releasing this fiesty fish.

It all ended just as quick as it had started. The remaining part of the afternoon we spent chasing fish that were only semi-interested. We each had a couple more hits, some short, but overall there seemed to be a mid-afternoon bite that was off as quickly as it turned on.

Not that I'm complaining one bit...

  MP