Got a chance to fish the Chehalis while visiting family for my birthday and conditions allowed. Fished from 730 to 330. Fished spinners and plugs in holding/frog water early and picked up fish throughout the day that were cruising up river. I landed the first two fish out of a slough early to my surprise, must have been birthday luck! One of the hens I hooked was very unhappy about being taken the better of and jumped nearly four feet out of the air before twirling and thrashing all around and making it to the net.

Early on the bite was great and we picked up four of our fish, one of which was a huge fire truck buck that got released. In the stale part of the day we tried fishing eggs but to no avail other than a quite large pike minnow. Plugs continued to be the best bite. Had to work hard for the rest of the day to pick up the rest of our limit, but did end up with our nine fish limit.

I picked up what my personal best coho at 14 lbs in the middle of a run we were drifting. It was real slow fishing at the time and I was in the rhythm of cast and SLOW retrieve when he grabbed it. Felt like a snag but I set the hook hard anyway; as my buddy says "jerk hard, jerk often." Waited one... two... seconds and then it started pulling back! Love it when that happens. Personally caught three nice fish all close to or over 10 lbs. Overall a great day of fishing and lots of delicious coho for the smoker and freezer, tight lines all.

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