I have seen and heard a lot about fishing there and until yesterday I always seemed to miss it by a day or two. I would see all the cars parked along the road every year but never stopped.. until yesterday. I had seen at least 2 dozen cars there the previous week so I had high hopes of hooking one of these monster fish. I couldn't get out till mid morning so I hoped there would be a place for me to squeeze in. When I arrived there were only a hand full of rigs and all but 2 old timers were packing it in. I thought I had blown it again and had missed the hot action.. I almost left but I had already put on waders so thought might as well soak a line it was a cold but beautiful morning.
I had researched what I could about fishing there and what I got was use green . Chartreuse seemed to be the ticket regardless of what you using , plug , corky and yarn or spinners. I didn't have much in chartreuse.. except power bait. So I figured why not try it. I slid a small oval slip sinker up the line and then added a swivel followed by maybe 15 inches of leader tipped with a trout hook that I had pinched the barb down on. The short leader was something I had gotten from you tube. I then added a hefty ball of power bait around the hook and flipped it out maybe 15 feet in front of me( another you tube inspired trick) and let it sit. I had no expectation of catching anything at all besides maybe a bullhead or something. On my 3rd cast I got a bump like a small trout was playing with it so I gave it a little jerk to scare it away and things went crazy. My line screamed out my reel heading for the other side and when I tried to slow it down there a huge splash as this fish turned and headed the other way. The bank was steep and slippery and I had no net so all I could do was play it until I could just yank it out of the water. After 4 or 5 runs it finally tired and I pulled it from the water. When I grabbed it I noticed my hook had popped out it's mouth and was hooked in some brush nearby. Nobody had heard of taking a salmon there on power bait. It was a beautiful fish , can't wait till the smoker has done it's magic. Hoping to get 1 more chance to fish there before they are gone till next year.