Yakutat Silvers, Sept 13-17

It was a good week.

-Allen

One fish is a good week???  MORE PICS MORE PICS MORE PICS!!!!

One of the most effective techniques we employed was twitch jigging.  We ran Steelhead Squids from Mad River Mfg on 1/4 to 1/2 ounce jigheads.  At times we were able to sight fish pods of fish moving up the river.  Typically we'd flip the jig just in front of the pods, twitch the jig a couple times, and watch the cohos turn on them.  These fish were aggressive and hot!  Way too much fun.  Nightmare, Glow/Bubblegum, and Pink/Chartreuse were all hot at times.

-Allen

Bushy with another typical Yakutat silver!  By the end of the trip, Bushy would turn into a spinner master ... Blue Fox #5 in various colors (pink, purple, green, ...).

-Allen

Action shot.  We all enjoyed 10-20 fish days.

-Allen

Looks like a blast! Weather looked awesome as well!

Looks like a blast! Weather looked awesome as well!

We had all of one sunny day.  The rest of the time it poured, like an 1+ inch of rain each day ...

-Allen

Looks like lots of fun

  A little bit of rain never hurt anyone.
  20 salmon a day is great day in any bodies eyes.
  That makes the rain not an issue.....

  A little bit of rain never hurt anyone.
  20 salmon a day is great day in any bodies eyes.
  That makes the rain not an issue.....

And apparently it might have been a little slow as the nets were in at the mouth.   They came out a day before we left.  That evening, after a 4:30PM high tide, it was lights out.  We probably had 10-ish fish each in 2 hours before the sun went down.

-Allen

Lovin it!

I'll bet it was nice to fish for ones that weren't being worked over incessantly by flossers.

-Mark-

Lovin it!

I'll bet it was nice to fish for ones that weren't being worked over incessantly by flossers.

-Mark-

We missed you Mark!

No flossing on these fish.  I still can't believe how aggressive they were in attacking the lures.  A typical setup was to either spot holding, rolling, or moving fish, and then anchor up and work them.  When we found the fish, downstream presentation into eddies worked extremely well.  We'd sometimes get them moving on lures right next to the boat.  Once the school was worked a bit, swinging lures into the seams would draw more strikes.  After pulling a few fish out of a hole, they got spooked.  After a few minutes, they'd settle down and often time go back in the chew.  Or a switchup in colors, or lures from twitch jigs to spinners and visa versa, would turn then back on for a bit.  As there were a few boats working the river (although not crowded), we'd often find ourselves pulling into holes as another driftboat was leaving it.  This was good for a few fish, but if we  pulled up to a hole that didn't appear to be worked out, it was pandemonium with multiple hookups until the school got spooked.  We didn't work  holes much longer than about 30 minutes as there was always the next hole down the river.  Tributaries always held fish, but the eddies we worked held fish one day only to be barren the next day as the fish were moving, but new holding spots were always to be found.  Many of the fish we got, 10 miles up the river, were dime bright with lice still on them.  They were just shooting up the river with the rains.  The tributary fish that were holding longer had a higher percentage of blushed up fish in them, so it was obvious they were holding longer.

Some of our hottest bites were found just pitching jigs around wood as we floated down the river.  We lost of lot of jigs this way, but working deep into the wood was productive enough that we just had to keep doing it.  One particularly memorable fish was Bushy hooking up next to a log.  The fish proceeded to do a 50/50 slide down the log finishing with a stalefish!  I kid you not.

-Allen