It is nice to be back on the WA Flyfishers list. I moved servers and finally
realized that I was not receiving any postings from this group over the past
month.
Fellow listmember Jeff Albert and I fished the Swift Creek drift yesterday
for the chums. Every year it seems I get there too late. So without the
benefit of any confirmed reports, we went out yesterday. There were 6-12
people there fairly constantly all day. For the most part flyfishers were
the dominant group. At one point I realized there were no gear fishers at
all and then one came later that day and remained the fisher on the bar with
any smell of the striped cat on his person. In fact the flyfishers were
absolutely putting on a clinic. If there was ever a more convincing
demostration of why a gear fisherman should immediately throw out his
spinning rod and go out purchase a fly outfit, this was it. I would estimate
that the flyfishers there outcaught the sole gear fisherman during his time
there (4-5 hours) at least 100-0.
Needless to say, the catching was pretty good. The fish that are holding
there now however are not that fresh. The fighting was less spirited than we
are accustomed to and the condition of all the fish I landed (about 10% of
what I hooked) looked to be post-spawned condition. In fact I was afraid of
tailing the fish in fear that the fish would swim off while I was left
holding the tail. Not quite that bad, but close to it. I believe that the
state of the run is about in the middle with a couple weeks left with some
fresh fish still not there yet that should hopefully provide for more
spirited fighting more often.
I would love to float that section of the Skagit and noticed a ramp just
above the Swift Creek riffle and was wondering where the next take-out is
and how many river miles approx. were between them. Can anyone provide some
info about that for me?
-Dave
-------------------------------------------------------
David Weitl mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Poulsbo, Washington WA Statewide Fishing Reports
http://www.nwfishing.com
"The gods do not deduct from a man's allotted span
the hours spent in fishing"
-- Babylonian Proverb
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Ayers [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 11:28 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re(2): Steelhead Saturday
Did anyone catch any steelies in any holes besides Fortson?
I drove down below and went shopping Saturday with my family(since our
power was out all day) and saw there were a ton of fisherman at Hazel.
Took last Thurs. off from work and floated the Skagit with my brother. We
did Swift Creek to Fabers. First stop was Swift Creek bar and my brother
hooks a Chum on his first cast. He was floating a peach colored jig under
a bobber. I waded out with my 8 weight and managed to hook several fish...
all totally kicked my ass and I landed none of them. We had the Swift
Creek bar all to ourselves till about 9:30am when a couple other guys
showed up.
My brother basically couldn't keep the Chums off his peach jig. We worked
our way downstream targeting Chums that looked aggressive. I found a
couple nice schools of Coho in some slower water and was able to get 3 of
them to bite some small flies. One didn't fight at all and the other 2
gave me about all my 5wt. could handle. I hooked some more Chum on another
drift and they all smoked me way into my backing before I finally lost
them.
All in all it was a very fun day. In addition to the eagles and herons we
saw 2 beavers cruising around. My brother even got a couple shots off with
his shotgun at some mallards.
The chums were by no means thick except at Swift Creek .
Sincerely,
Keith
