Cast Straight Out!

One of the highlights for me every morning is to see my wife off to work by walking her to the bus stop.  This morning in preparation for the fishing trip, I ate breakfast first.  My wife walked to the bus stop a few minutes ahead of me.  By the time I got out to the bus stop, the bus had just passed.  I only got to see the rear lights of the bus.  The bus came a few minutes early and I was glad that my wife did not miss it.

Then I went fishing.

I arrived at the fishing hole around 7:30 AM.  Only one person was there before me.  You guessed it: The Lucky One.  He has landed NINE salmon so far for the 2016 season!!!

I went about ten feet downstream from the Lucky One.  My first cast was far out in front of me, but about ten feet upstream thus making it directly in front of the Lucky One.  I counted about 15 seconds for the lure to hit bottom, then I proceeded to reel it in.  Seeing that I must coordinate with the Lucky One so that our fishing lines won't tangle, I asked: "Which way is the current?  Should I continue to cast upstream?"

"Nah.  Just cast it straight out in front of you."  Said the Lucky One.

I did just that.  As I reeled in, we exchanged fishing stories.  Nothing on the second cast.

Straight out in front of me, I repeated the process for the third cast.  As we were busy talking, I noticed the lure was about SEVEN feet in front of me and it stopped!  "Darn," I thought to myself,  "I must have got a snag."  The Lucky One told me I should have seen the look on my face :-)  But then, the snag started tugging!  Wahoo!!!  Fish on, baby!  And only on the third cast!  I forgot to turn on my GoPro and had to be reminded.  So I captured a little bit of the action for your enjoyment.

My thanks go out to the Lucky One, who netted the salmon for me.  The lure came off just as the fish was in the net.  Then it happened.  The fish flopped off the net and was heading towards the river!  Oh, no!  Fortunately, I jumped in and headed it off.

"Grab the tail," instructed the Lucky One.

I did just that!  Whew!

So I went fishing this morning at 6:50 AM; I landed a beautiful 14-pound hatchery hen after the third cast; and I was home by 8:22 AM.

God is good!

First one from Sac. River for 2016

Just in:  Remember the salmon from last week (10/8/2016).

The Department of Fish and Wildlife (Department) would like to sincerely thank you for cooperating with field samplers on the Central Valley Angler Survey.  The Chinook Salmon you caught on Saturday, October 8th, 2016 on the American River contained a coded-wire tag.  The tag number (055811) allowed us to retrieve important information about the fish.

This 2-year old male was the progeny of fall-run Chinook Salmon spawned at the Coleman National Fish Hatchery located on Battle Creek during the fall of 2014.  It hatched in 2015 and was released from the hatchery on May 14th, 2015 into San Pablo Bay.  The average length and weight of salmon in the hatchery release group, of which your fish was a part, were only 79 millimeters and 7.8 grams, respectively.  The salmon you caught grew to 64.0 centimeters (25.2 inches) and 3.5 kilograms (7.72 pounds).