Fished the Fraser in BC for sockeye this weekend. It was, to say the least, interesting. I fished for only an hour or so on Saturday, but spend 4 or 5 hours at it Sunday.

The place: Island 22, just north of Chilliwack. The water is Big. Really Big. And fast.

The method: Flossing. All flossing, all the time. All the locals had 10 foot poles, and 2 or 3 ounces of lead, followed by a leader from seven to ten feet. Some were using small corkies or spin-'n-glos above the hook with a bit of yarn, others were just using yarn. It went like this: chuck your lead out as far into the river as possible, set the hook three or four times a cast.

The locals: for the most part, extremely nice and courteous. It was fairly crowded, but there was always a sport or two open for the entreprenuerial, social angler. Everybody was pretty much respectful, and let their neighbors play and land fish without disturbance. That said, everybody seemed to let their drift last far too long. And they held their rods so high, it was difficult to cast upstream over their lines as is usually done in combat zones. I spent as much time waiting for the guy two spots up to reel in as I did actually fishing. This place had less of a "party atmosphere" than other combat fisheries I've experienced. It was definately a meat fishery: get your two, and get out of there.

The fish: beautiful and plentiful. The skilled flossers were hooking fish regularly. I had a hard time getting too excited about it all, and had a bum reel that didn't cast very far, so I only caught one fish. It didn't fight as hard as most other sockeye I've caught.

I'd prefer not to turn this thread into a debate about the ethics of flossing -- that's been done to death on these boards. But I'd be happy to answer any other questions.