Fished the Skagit at first light both Saturday and Sunday. Using live sand shrimp behind a spin-n-glo (my lucky one is chrome with pink tiger stripes and pink wings) we plunked on a popular bar with a friendly crowd. Saturday there were periodic bites up and down the bar, I missed one at 5:15 and caught a nice one at 5:45. It weighed in at 7.5 lbs, and was a really nice hen with tiny immature eggs and a thick belly. It always amazes me how chrome these fish are and how red the meat is. I paid the price for this one, getting a hook in my left ring finger past the barb - I had to push it through all the way to clip it off and get it out. Worth it though.

Sunday was really slow - one angler released a wild steelhead (probably a kelt?) and we saw only one sockeye landed. As usual, the landing ratio of these fish seemed to be less than 50%. Remember to keep your drag set loose and don't do a big hookset like it was a chinook - these fish will hook themselves if you just reel up on them. The fish are trickling in, but hopefully it picks up soon. The fish counts at the Baker River trap are still pretty low, so I think this fishery is just getting going. The river is still quite high, so there really aren't any bars showing yet, but the visibility was really good. We saw one fish caught from a boat on Saturday, but I think the bank anglers are doing better so far.

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