Hey Scooter, A good point the largest King salmon I ever saw was in the Sol Duc back in about 1975 just above the bark hole. We were watching two hens estimated weight low thirtys and a lone male that was solid 40 plus. Out on the edge of what we could see well was a shadowy object that one would not normaly associate with salmon as it was too large
The river had just risen about 18 inches and as often happens in the Sol duc on an early Fall freshet the water was tea colored and the fish were a little less spooky than what I would have considered "normal". WE were enjoying catching a few coho and we didn't even consider casting to the three kings as they were actively spawning and we really were enjoying watching such large and and beautiful creatures doing there thing.
Well after standing on the bank for about 5 minutes peacefully admireing our surroundings one of the Females started to dig on her redd again, and lo and behold the log looking object did a turn niner and came straight towards us. The other male gave way without much of a commotion and the big guy , easily twice as large, swam up next to the digging female. The result was that he was now almost completely exposed from the lateral line up, even his eyes were out of the water. This very large King salmon at that point launched himself to deeper water and took off upstream at a high rate of speed actually making a wake that the wave from it broke on both banks of the river.
You might wonder what the verbal exchange was aftrer an event like that it was the usual mundane "Did you see that" chanted in unison by the three folks standing side by side On the right bank of the Sol Duc over a quarter of a century ago and it seems like it just happened.
Thanks for reminding me!