I bought the Columbia River S/S endorsement yesterday just in case I landed any salmon today. One of the poles that I brought with me was a 9 ft medium action pole with 12 pound mainline. The tiny 1/16 oz shad dart was on a 8 pound leader.
My arms were tired from bait casting for several hours straight. Only had one birdsnest with a 1/2 oz sinker. Thanks for all of the WA Lakes members for baitcasting tips.
Thats pretty good for only the second time fishing with it. I went to my car for a break. When I went back down to the shore, I switched over to the salmon rod and reel.I make a cast and start reeling in. Something hits the shad dart like a freight train and the drag is singing. At first, I just assumed I hooked into the back of a sturgeon. It takes several minutes to get the fish clost to shore. The first thing that I saw was the tail. Looked like a small sturgeon tail at first till the fish rolled under water. It has huge and silver. My heart is trying to jump out of my chest and the andrenaline is pumping. The fight is on like Donkey Kong.
My friend stops fishing and runs over to help. The King makes a long run and all I can do is watch. A plunker near by tells me to play the fish out or the fish will straighten out the hook. The fear of losing the fish takes over. The salmon only gives back inch by inch of line and then makes another run. I loosen the drag because the 8 pound leader is 3 years old and I didnt want the line to snap. Eventually the salmon gets tired and Im able to get it close to shore after the slowest 15 minutes of my life.
It makes a final desperate run upstream and my line gets caught into a plunkers line. We race to untangle the lines and landed the salmon into the net. I immediately look for the adipose fin while the fish was still in the water. It was a chrome native. The shad dart was removed from its lip and the fish was revived and set free. I was thankful for the fight and happy that the native was able to swim away to reproduce.
This king was way bigger than the 7 pound silver that I caught in the past. Since it was a native, we were unable to weigh it. The plunker and my friend congratulate me on a great job. He told me he already lost three salmon that straightened out the hook on his shad darts. He estimated the fish to be 12 pounds. Im not gonna argue with that. haha. That one fish made the 7 hour round trip well worth it. Now I can proudly say I have caught a King salmon.
