[juro]

How was the chum run this year? According to Bill's few adventures in November, there were no hordes of fanged salmon as I would have expected. Since he just moved out there I thought he might be well to get his butt kicked a few times by the nasty boyz of fall, dem' dawgs.

If I can find my scanner cable I will scan a fly the two flies I would knock 'em with... one chartruese (no surprises) one hot pink. It was amazing how they'd chomp the pink when everyone else had been throwing green at them all day long.

Another member, Fly swap participant, and former PNW resident Gregg Estey used to fish Hoodsport before he moved out here where I've fished with him on three great Conclaves. I found Dennis Dickson's stories about the chum angling gig on Hood Canal very interesting.

They sure ain't chromer steelies but as far as pure uninhibited rumbling they're hard to beat.

 

[Doublespey]

Chum run was late and not very big.

I fished them on the Sky a couple days and failed to hook any. There were a couple big ones rolling in the seam at Wallace Flats (you've gotta fish that spot someday) but I couldn't get them to take either the green or pink flies that I've had quite a bit of success with in prior years.

A couple float guys targeting them in back-eddys did well, but the fly guys I talked to said fishing was as tough as they've seen it. Fish were also over 2 weeks late - they started arriving in late November and the runs seemed to peak the first couple weeks of December.

The low returns were expected - the year these fish were smolt the Puget Sound rivers were ravaged with major flooding and the mortality on eggs and fry was significant.

 

[sinktip]

I echo Brian's report. They seemed to be few and far between on the Sky. The day before Thanksgiving a friend and I floated Sultan to Ben Howard and I managed to tie into a couple of big bucks but that was it. (Both hit on a hot Orange Marabou spider of all things) Hoodsport was a relative bust this year as well. The predicted run never really peaked but rather was late with fish tricling in over much of November and early December. I fished up canal for 4 days in late October; a time when we can usually nail them as they come in, and we never realy got into big pods of fish.

 

[Eric]

Chums are one of my absolute favorite fish -- aggressive fly attackers, great fighters, and super abundant (ordinarily). Because of the pressures of work, I couldn't get out this year to my favorite chum streams on Tillamook Bay, but it sounds as if the runs were depressed this year.

Oregon has been protecting the chums somewhat, but closing the season on November 15 and up till then allowing only catch and release. Does anyone have a report on what the Oregon situation was like this year? I would hope that the no-catch and early closures were leading to a rebounding of the chum populations. Maybe there's a problem in the ocean or high water wiped out the spawn a couple years back.

Petri heil,

Eric