A great day off

Well last year I purchased at a charity auction a day on the river with Bill McMillan more for the donation but also for the chance to fish with a man that is a kind of Hero of mine being from Vancouver. Well yesterday I got a chance to go on the trip on the Skagit and Sauk. Bill is truely a great fisherman and a really nice guy. He put me threw all the water first, pointed out the buckets and where other access points were to the river even though we didn't fish them. His wife cooked an amazing lunch which was a great break in the middle of a cold day. Truely two great people.

Well on to the fishing. As I started my drive in the snow at 6 AM I wasn't too hopeful of getting into fish but was still very excited. I arrived at 8 AM and we hit the river right away. It snowed until about 1:30 solid and made things absolutely beautiful. I ended up touching 3 fish. 1 in the Skagit which I missed and two in the Sauk which I landed. One was about a 7 lbs. hatchery fish which made nice steaks. Then about a half hour later I hook another fish which turned out to take about 20 minutes to land. It turned out to be a 38" X 19.5" native buck that kicked my butt. It was beautiful. I have never got a fish that had a fore head before. Unfortunately I forgot the camera but the memory of that fish will last forever. Actually the memory that will last forever was as soon as I up righted the fish and pointed it up stream it took off strong and I watched him swim away to go make more just like him.

What a great day with a great Old man of the river and a fish of my life time. I don't know if it was 20 but it was probably 19 easy.

Tight lines
JJ