Hey guys this past week I finally got a chance to come from college in Sudbury and get out for some bass and salmon before I head back up to finish my 3rd year this coming weekend. The Gallant boys had been telling me that the salmon in the rivers were on fire. So Monday and Tuesday morning we got out to see if we could hook into some tanks and we sure did! Yesterday we landed 4 and today we landed 3. This was my first time fishing for salmon in the river, instead of the big lake and it was an absolute rush!! There's nothing like a salmon dragging you upstream full speed and there's nothing u can do to stop it. I had rainbow fished lots in the spring but I think this may be a new addiction! My buddy Colin is awesome with the fly rod and he out-fished me the first day on the fly rod, I was impressed. Today was a different story tho, we got up at 5am and headed down to the river by 5:30am and threw on our gear and headed to the first pool. Every pool was just loaded with fish and it really didn't matter where we fished, we just had to wait until they turned on.. So for the first hour today we didn't have any takes. Then as soon as the sun came over the hill and hit the pool, my float slammed under and I set the hook with my baitcast set-up. It felt solid and I knew I was into a good fish. The beast started going nuts in the pool and jumped 3 feet out of the water and got both my buddy's lines hooked into my line, lol so that was a mess to start but eventually they cut off and the fight was ON! The fish took me 100+ yards up-stream and close to 30 minutes to get him in. Cooper finally got a hold of him and we snapped a few pics and he swam off no problem! He was a big fresh male and was close to 25lb's with a 41" Length (last pics). I was using my baitcast set-up to try out and it was awesome feeling the drag scream off it when he took runs up-stream. I highly recommend trying a baitcast set-up in the rivers, its a lot of fun compared to the standard spinning/float reel. Try using a 7ft (or bigger) Medium or Medium/Heavy rod paired up with a solid baitcast reel with good drag, and 6-8lb test for these tankers. When a fish takes your float under try not to do the hard bass hookset with this setup (it's tempting), I found that a side sweep hookset worked really well. Anyways, this is my first post back from college so hopefully I did alright. Hoping to get back out there on Thursday for another slam before i take off. Cheers and Tight Lines!
Luke Sellick |
