Two solid days bookended by short days on a crowded hole on the sol duc. I know some of you were probably there...

...anyway, you start to notice certain things.

Fri night...

Fifteen guys from out of town in the head of the hole all throwing number four vibrax. I walk in, head directly for the tailout and after about ten casts hook and land an eight pound silver on a spoon.

three guys fall in...

Saturday morning...

ten local dudes standing on their rocks in the darkness in the tailout are not really amazed to see fifteen flashlights headed their direction...you know, to fish in the twelve available spots down there.

the out of town guys are shocked that they were firstwatered and vow not to let it happen again tomorrow.

they tie on their spoons but notice they still aren't using what the local guys are using, in fact they mock it as inferior and perhaps a bit hickish.

the local guys immediately begin hooking fish.

after hours of futility and close, I mean real close observation things kinda clear out....for about as long as it takes to run into town and back. lo and behold the out of town guys start to hook some fish too...

eight guys fall in, the guy who came closest to dying laughed the hardest

Sunday...

local guys offer coffee to the out of town guys as they show up to the hole first watered again.

everyone hooks fish, even the greenest of the greenhorns.

no one falls in

****

its also interesting to watch the dynamic change from an atmosphere of determined silence on saturday morning to one rivalling a frat party by sunday evening.

isn't there always one kid who's doing his own thing down there?

six foot rod, coffee can reel...

you hook a huge chinook and he tells you its an eight pound coho..

...birds nest on the first cast that takes an hour to pick out...

...loses only lure in the bushes behind him on his next cast...

hangs up a borrowed lure on his next but can't break it off because his thirty pound test won't break

...empties entire reels worth of line right in your formerly perfect drift...

...never gets it when you mock him mercilessly...

...leaves when someone gives him a charity fish....

***

to wrap things up here I also wanted to mention that I was guilty of leaving a few beer bottles behind saturday evening. I remembered I forgot them saturday night but when I went to get them sunday morning someone more conscientious than I had packed them out.

To that person I say thank you.

Monday I took a hefty bags worth of garbage out of there as penance.

\m/