Fished the Agate Pass bridge with fellow list member, Gregg Mindt, on
Saturday. We started at low tide at 7:00 am and joined the troops of
other anglers (approximately 14 of them) in pursuit of a fly caught
coho. Within ten casts, Gregg hooked up, but the fish shook loose. A
few minutes later, after a hot fight, I landed a nice hook nose coho of
around 7 pounds. After that, the sun came up, and it went dead. For
the next two hours we pounded it. Most of the other guys left. I had
mentioned to Gregg that it was about time to go grab a bite to eat, and
as he was agreeing with me, with his line no more than 15 feet out, a
nice fish decided to eat his pink clouser. After a good struggle, Gregg
landed his fish. At this point, I had renewed faith and began casting
again. A fish happened to roll about 50 feet out (not many of them were
doing that Saturday morning) just as I was making a cast, and I pitched
it right in front of him, stripped twice, and set up hard when he
inhaled the fly. Another good fight and a nice fish. We tried another
20 minutes, but no more fish. Then, we left to go eat.
Not a bad morning. We felt lucky considering we saw only four fish
landed that morning, and three of those fish were ours. It actually
made us feel a bit superior, like we were doing something right,
something different from everyone else, but Gregg and I know better than
to believe that crap; we just got lucky. Or, maybe the fish gods felt
sorry for us because we were the only ones stupid enough to still be out
there fishing after it was clearly evident the fish had checked out for
the day. Either way, it was cool.
Last week chartruese seemed to be the color, this week it was pink. It
seems I do better on sunny days with pink and on cloudy days with olive
or chartruese. I don't know, maybe just coincidence. I tried poppers
both week-ends with no luck. But, I must admit, I only gave them a
chance for a short while.
In addition, I spoke to a fellow that said he had great angling in the
Quilcene River for 6-10 pound silvers on a hot, flame orange "sockeye",
(nothing more than a bead chain egg pattern). Just thought I'd pass
that along to those of you who live on the peninsula.
Jeff Hale
