Spawning Salmon

In this day and age of conterversy on which rivers to close and at what times to close them to protect certain salmon species. It is nice once in awhile to sit buy a river and watch the fish make their journey to either be caught or die in the cycle of life or watch from a distance them actually in the ritual of spawning.

Yesterday I went to camp at the Dosewallips State Park with the intent of on my way back to Port Townsend to stop and try fishing for one of the silvers making their way to the hatchery on the Quilcene river. While camping at the Dosie I decided to go for a walk down by the river and try to relax and with the river closed to fishing on the lower stretches I figured I could find a nice place to sit and watch the river and listen to nature. Well the Chum where in fairly thick and just watching them fan out a bed and watching the hens chase of males until shes ready was fun to watch and I knew there where going to be a few future fish.

Then this morning I stopped at the quil and after fishing with a corky and yarn and letting an hour go by before losing a nice little silver I decided to just sit and watch and had a guy come down snag one above the Hwy 101 bridge(closed waters) and then releasing it when he realized to game wardens where watching with binoculars from the hatchery. I just sat and enjoyed the fish making their way upstream and even seeing a nice native steelhead.

Guess what I am saying is just once in awhile sit and watch and be thankful we have such a glorious place on this world to do such things.

And hopfully tomorrow I will indeed nail a nice one and enjoy a great meal with my family.

Indeed a very cool phenomenon to witness.

Last night while fishing the S.F. Stilly up river from the Jordan bridge, I was standing chest high in water drifting spinners. Once I looked up from the water and took a look around I realized how lucky I was to be in such a beautiful place! The sun hit the trees just so, the river had that just right color, fish jumping and rolling, it was breath taking. I'm with you on this one, sometimes the best thing to do is to just enjoy the wonder of nature around you.

I have to agree, I was on the upper Kalama last weekend at my families place and there were about 6-10 pairs of Springers Spawing out front. Was great to see since allthat have beeen there in the past couple years is one pair in this area. Hopefully someday they will get the steelhead back up there in decent numbers.

i was on the carbon last night, and i looked up and i seen the moon coming up right over mt. rainer jus when it was getting darker, it was so cool. im gonna bring my camera next time and if i get a pic i will post it, it is so neat..bb