Bunny Leech, another friend and I made our annual trip to Hoodsport on Monday. One the negativer side it is combat fishing and it requires little skill as the fish are everywhere. On the plus side chums will kick your butt in the salt and it is fun to go get your fill of "catching" so you can dedicate the next five months to "fishing" for steelhead.
I won't bore anyone with tales of this fishery but for those of you who have experienced it I wanted to share the story of the two "fishermen" from Spokane. Given last weeks discussions of purity, I thought this might at least provide a laugh.
About 7:30 in the morning we are in our tubes casting to a large pod of fish in front of us when here comes "Fisherman" 1 in his float tube headed right through the pod. Since he was going backwards I thought maybe he didn't see the fish. Trying to be helpful I called to him and told him there was fish right behind him. His reply, "don't worry, they'll be back". With this he kicks through the pod and away they go. Hey this is Hoodsport so we turned around and started casting to a pod behind us.
After pushing in between Bunny Leech and myself, we had left a good 10' between us, he starts telling us that this fishery is "the best kept secret in the lower 48". If so, I don't want to fish the worst. He went on to explain as soon as he got back home he was going to tell all his family and friends about Hoodsport. Ah damn, there goes the fishery.
About this time, "Fisherman" 2 shows up and the two of them proceed over to stand in the creek in front of the hatchery gates (which is illegal by the way) and start casting right up to the gates. For those of you that have not been there, the mouth of the hatchery consists of a pool roughly 15' by 20' and 3-4' deep. There are always between 100-200 salmon stacked up there and it is off limits to fishing for obvious reasons. Not to the Spokane boys though as they repeadedly cast to the gates and then made a series of hard strips until their fly found flesh. This was followed by a "I got another one, man this fishing is incredible". And the snagging was apparently pretty good as well.
Watching this, I couldn't help but chuckle at how pathetic a display we were watching. Fly fishing at its finest. But don't tell anyone, it is a secret
ST
I won't bore anyone with tales of this fishery but for those of you who have experienced it I wanted to share the story of the two "fishermen" from Spokane. Given last weeks discussions of purity, I thought this might at least provide a laugh.
About 7:30 in the morning we are in our tubes casting to a large pod of fish in front of us when here comes "Fisherman" 1 in his float tube headed right through the pod. Since he was going backwards I thought maybe he didn't see the fish. Trying to be helpful I called to him and told him there was fish right behind him. His reply, "don't worry, they'll be back". With this he kicks through the pod and away they go. Hey this is Hoodsport so we turned around and started casting to a pod behind us.
After pushing in between Bunny Leech and myself, we had left a good 10' between us, he starts telling us that this fishery is "the best kept secret in the lower 48". If so, I don't want to fish the worst. He went on to explain as soon as he got back home he was going to tell all his family and friends about Hoodsport. Ah damn, there goes the fishery.
About this time, "Fisherman" 2 shows up and the two of them proceed over to stand in the creek in front of the hatchery gates (which is illegal by the way) and start casting right up to the gates. For those of you that have not been there, the mouth of the hatchery consists of a pool roughly 15' by 20' and 3-4' deep. There are always between 100-200 salmon stacked up there and it is off limits to fishing for obvious reasons. Not to the Spokane boys though as they repeadedly cast to the gates and then made a series of hard strips until their fly found flesh. This was followed by a "I got another one, man this fishing is incredible". And the snagging was apparently pretty good as well.
Watching this, I couldn't help but chuckle at how pathetic a display we were watching. Fly fishing at its finest. But don't tell anyone, it is a secret
ST