Chinook Fly Rod Traditions.. Pic heavy mega post!

[Chinook SSSF]

For the last 20 years I have spent in Oregon I have fished with many many great anglers and a ton of up and comers. When I look back at all the places I fished with all these people I see that fishing friends tend to re-connect around that "certain" time of year when something you have in common begins to occur all over again. I have a pretty rich history fishing with Mike Braun and the rest of his outdoor loving family. Mike and I tend to go our seperate ways for much of the year but there are several fisheries that pull us back together throughout a years time, some of which we label as tradition. One such tradition occurs on what I like to refer to as "little river" near the town of Astoria Oregon. For almost as long as I have been in Oregon Mike and I have had a tradition to get together on little river and whack the living heck out of chinook salmon on nothing but fly rods.





After spending many seasons on little river we know that if the first thing you see is fish blasting the riffles you know your in for a good day. We had arrived a bit later in the day than most trips but our first sightings of fish came as soon as we got out of the truck. It was pretty obvious that little river was going to produce today...



Mike was fast into a super nice buck as the first few fished began to pass with the evening tide. We find that if we bounce around a little bit we can pick up a few extra fish while we wait for the push to build. Who knows what causes fish to move around the way they do but in places like this fish can appear out of nowhere at any time.



Our poking around this day lead to a solid connection with this overweight tule hen. Hens in these lower Columbia basin stream are often well over 20 pounds and although they can appear brown can often cut red as this one did. A non destructive hatchery controlled source of salmon and roe. About half of the streams on the Oregon and Washington side of the lower columbia basin have hatchery controlled runs that are designed to benefit both sport and commercial interests.







Moving on toward dusk we had settled on our final location for the day and things had improved to our expectations. we spent the next 2 hours enjoying fishing that could only be compared to Alaska. Catching and releasing king after king on 10 weight fly rods until only the darkness could stop us and send us on our way.







Some traditions are meant to be kept and more still some traditions are meant to be kept just between friends. I can remember years when salmon did not come and many long days spent waiting in our best spots turned out fruitless leaving us with only the long drive home. I can also remember years when so many salmon came it was simply overkill. Most important to me is that I remember every single one of those years I spent walking little river was with my longest standing fishing partner Mike, the one who showed me about the magic of little river so many years ago. Good times and rich history for our families, a tradition that must repeat again.

......................................,

The Spoils of war





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[worm slayer]

Nice...........does that creek produce steelies too.

[Spade]

Thanks for sharing Matt. Beautiful place, awesome fish, long time friends, what more could you want?

[ryank]

Matt, that is awesome! Thanks for sharing, I love these posts with a bunch of pics. those are some LARGE fish! how many did you guys catch that day? or did you guys lose count?

[RollinontheRvr]

Thanks for sharing Matt. Beautiful place, awesome fish, long time friends, what more could you want?

Wat more could anyone say? Gabe, you said it best. Way to go Matt and Mike.

[Fishnfool]

Great looking fish guys.

[spactrukn]

Once again Matthew, you have managed to post some excellent glory shots with an amazing storyline. Keep up the great work.

[Taylor von]

Thanks for sharing.

Big fish and flyrods are a winning combo.

[GW]

I've never fished there, but looking at your photos makes me want to. Those fish must tear it up and down that little creek as soon as you lay into them. I bet they go nuts.

Sweet photos, and the spoils aren't too bad either.

[Chinook SSSF]

Thanks for the super nice comments! Glad I had these to share : )

I dont think we ever really do keep track of how many get caught. It takes a bit of time to fight out and land some of those chinook and there are those that you break off. I would think its not un-common to land 15 to 20 fish in a push. The day shown here IM not sure if we hit 20 because several broke off and had us scrambling to get a new leaders on a bunch of times during the short period of day light left, when they finaly got enough nerve to push. I also break off ANY foul hooked fish that occur right away but the end result is yet another rig to assemble. I purposly run a 20 lb leader so I can break off those that are fould or that I simply do not want to fight. Fighting foul hooked king salmon on a fly rod just simply sucks...period, and it is very hard on your expensive fly rods.

Most of the streams in the lower Columbia basin do also contain hatchery winter steelhead runs but just like the chinook runs, timing is ultra critical. There are several anglers on this forum that will agree with my saying it is very easy to "miss" the fish....As with any fishing persistence can pay off!

If you like these, I have some more from another very special day I will show soon.

Again, thanks for the nice comments on my post