My first salmon and some more.. fun with SteelmonKiller

[montym]

Yesterday, SteelmonKiller aka Tanner and I fixed up to meet at Carver Park early today; and we did. I parked there, went to Barton Park to drift back down and and we were on the water before sunlight. Spent some time drinking tea and chewing the cud, and started fishing as soon as we could see clearly. I'll spare you the technical details, I know I'll screw-up the terms.

End result, one nice coho being prepared for an Indian style curry right now, 4 fish released and a great day overall for me. The coho was almost 7 lb after the bleeding and gutting, fought a lot and from the fight Tanner had guessed it to be a wild one. Luckily for me, it was not.

Next one turned out to be a cutthroat trout, probably about 15 inch or so. Came in like a log, no fun there. The one after was a sucker fish, Tanner estimated it at about 6 lb, released. One small sucker fish next, released. The next one nearly flipped me. Tanner asked me to reel in, I did and just as I started the bobber went down. I didn't even see it, but to his credit Tanner did and the end result was one nice steelhead tagging along nicely after my bobber. For a moment I thought steelhead were over hyped, but was I wrong about it? It near about went crazy near the boat and really made us work to land it. It was going here there and everywhere, I was clueless, but we did get it into the net. Wild one, so off it went to where it came from; probably to tell scary stories about food that pulled fish to the monsters floating on water.

Can't even count the falls alarms and missed hook sets, I need a lot more work on hooking a fish.

4 new types of fish caught, nice fresh salmon to eat, no work, and a river cruise that I won't mind paying for itself for the scenery, all in all my best fishing day of the year.

Word about Tanner, I hope I do not sound condescending my friend. First of all I was really surprised, and a bit apprehensive when I saw how young he was. Completely off the mark again, he turned out to be just great. This was my second guided trip, if the first guide was 2 then Tanner would be a 9. He was very patient, answered all my question clearly; seems like a great chap to be around. Life's not perfect though, he's got to take part of the blame for the salmon in his top spots not biting my bait I will surely do more trips with him, just don't know when all the stars and funds will be aligned again.




Cheers
M

 

[flocaster]

Nice report and great day it sounds like! Makin me a bit jealous with all the salmon and steelhead i see on here lately lol

 

[eugene1]

Great recap, monty.

Sounds like a great time with a good guide.

Best,

 

[OnTheDrop]

Thanks for the kind words Monty. I had a lot of fun today as well!

Cheers,

 

[montym]

Thank you, it was a great day indeed for me. And for an update, the salmon tasted wonderful For a change, my wife is not complaining about me spending the whole day away from her and the kid on my day off, and that makes this really priceless

Cheer
M

 

[rogerdodger]

excellent!

 

[C_Run]

Congratulations on your first salmon, Monty. It figures that Tanner would be a good teacher the way he's been putting up the the fish porn here for the past few years. You should post your recipe, too, unless it's a secret, of course.

Question? Was the wild steelhead a winter fish?

 

[troutdude]

Wild one, so off it went to where it came from; probably to tell scary stories about food that pulled fish to the monsters floating on water.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Great report Monty! Way to go!

 

[montym]

Thank you folks.

Flocaster, I know how you feel. I was browsing the forum on Thursday while at work, luckily my boss is a vegetarian and he is not likely to see this; and I just had enough of it. Had a plan fixed with Tanner within a couple of hours. I picked up a slight fever with the fish, so any further adventures this weekend is ruled out, but I'll be out shopping this weekend for some new gear.

C_run, if I remember correctly, Tanner said it was summer fish. No clue about the recipe, she sometimes uses some spices and mixes that leaves me completely clueless.

Cheers
M

 

[OnTheDrop]

Congratulations on your first salmon, Monty. It figures that Tanner would be a good teacher the way he's been putting up the the fish porn here for the past few years. You should post your recipe, too, unless it's a secret, of course.

Question? Was the wild steelhead a winter fish?

The Clackamas gets a handful of Wild Summer or if you want to call themFall steelhead.

 

[DrTheopolis]

The Clackamas gets a handful of Wild Summer or if you want to call themFall steelhead.

Rare, but I've caught them, always in fall. They tend to be large fish, in my experience.

 

[OnTheDrop]

Rare, but I've caught them, always in fall. They tend to be large fish, in my experience.

It's so weird, because everyone says that, and whenever I get one it's lucky to hit 5lbs

I did hook one a couple falls ago that was a TOAD.