I headed up to fish with mreyns and the rest of the PA crew for the weekend. Saturday morning me and Mark met Brad, Tbird and one if his buddies and headed out to Forks. We bummed around town for a while and finally made it over to LoweDown's place to wake him up, it was time to fish. We kicked around a few ideas with Bret and decided to take the boats for an afternoon float. We pushed off around 12:30. Me and brad fished with Bret and Tbird rowed his boat with Mark in the bow.
Fishin was slow, but the fish were quality. We missed a fish or two but I eventually tied into a toad buck in a boulder garden. It was an epic battle, one I will never forget. Bret maxed himself out to get back up to an eddy so that we could free the line that was hung on the corner of a large rock, all the while the fish was tearin upstream. He ran us all over the place, after giving chase upstream we had to follow him down. Everything really had to work out perfectly for us to get him in the bag, which Brad did perfectly. He taped out at an honest 39"x20", my first true 20.
I gotta give some major props to Bret for busting his ass for that fish, in most boats that fish would have been long gone. Thanks Bret
We fished for a few more hours with no more hookups, but eventually Brad found one. Brad stuck the big'ol hen and after rolling around a few times she scorched off a solid 100' of line going completely airborn 2 times I believe. Tom and Mark were at the top of the hole, the fish cleared the water right off their bow. They estimated the fish to be in the upper 30" range, a high teen chrome girl. We got the best part of the fight out of her before she was able to find some debry to get wrapped up in. All we're missing is a picture. Here's one of her splashing around on the surface.
We had to burn a lot of water to make it to the take out before dark. After dropping the boats and gear at Bret's place we went and had mexican food with Bob, Corey, RoRo, Pat Graham, Sol and his GF Sherry. Food was good as was the company. Our group went back to Bret's for an after dinner get together with Sol and Sherry, which of course was fun.
We slept in and got back on the river around noon again. Mark hit the only fish of the afternoon right off the bat, a pretty 35" hen...
That was a damn fun weekend, got to meet a couple more board members which is always cool and we got some quality fishin in. Props to Bret for fishin with and hosting friends on his days off, totally cool of him. We probably could have caught a few more fish if we had been on the water early, but the time we spent off the water was just as fun and entertaining as the time spent fishing. Wouldn't have had it any other way. Here's LoweDown, the coolest guy around
Thanks bro.
Bret, I have your bottle of hot sauce. I found it in my pocket while I was driving home
And I Mark, you left your gloves in my car. You'll have to get them when you come down for Springers in a bit, or I can send em to ya if needed. Lookin forward to fishin with everyone again, look out Springers....Later
Jake
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