| Location: | Nooksack River, South Fork |
|---|---|
| Type of fish: | Silver(Coho) salmon |
| Methods | Fly fishing, jig fishing, spinners & spoons |
| Weather | Cool, cloudy |
South fork of the Nooksack.
Getting up at 4:30am on a Saturday morning may seem a little crazy to some people (including me). If however there’s a river packed full of eager Cohos waiting for you it makes waking up a little easier (in theory).
Waiting for daybreak, hot cocoa in hand.
We arrived at our chosen fishing hole about 1 full hour before daylight (thanks to my over zealous prediction of how long before sunrise it gets light). After fighting with gear in waders in the dark for what seemed like hours we finally began the stumble down to the river. The stumbling was mostly due to our lack of flashlights of any kind and only partly to due with the hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps we’d downed earlier.
We staked our claim on the best bit of bank we could find and waited. Not long after taking our positions an army of other fisher folk began arriving. Watching all the lights bobbing through the trees reminded me of an episode of the X-Files.
My one fish of the day (yes I kept it).
Even in the dusky dark you could hear the fish rolling and jumping. Finally the sun was up enough to allow us the first cast. After about 20 minutes I hooked into a nice 6lb hatchery Coho. Sadly, this fish seemed to be the only salmon out of the 50 or so milling around that felt like biting. Seven hours of total fishing yielded only three fish hooked and only two landed between the three of us.
Someone missed the memo about not using bait in the selective gear rules.
Our lack of success was not for lack of trying. In those 7 hours of fishing we tried every method at our disposal, flies, jigs, spinners, spoons, basically everything short of jumping in the grabbing them bare handed! Salmon, as I’ve learned over the years, are very picky creatures. What works one day will not work the next. The best advice I can give someone trying to catch Silver salmon on the Nooksack is, don’t give up! Keep trying different colors but always make sure you have at least one forest green Vibrax spinner in your box.
Keep those lines tight and I’ll see you all on the river!
www.dryftfishing.com
venture.
Fun times! btw, I like the new look of your site – it looks great.
Fun times indeed! Thanks, I figured it was time for a makeover. Can’t wait to get on the water again!
[...] of salmon season on the south fork of the Nooksack river. To read more about this adventure click here. As the weather gets worse and work slows down(I run my own house painting business) I should have [...]