Sockeye

[Okanagan]

Done with limit of two soon after 7:00 AM though it was a slow start from 5:30 till almost 7.



Male and female created He them.

[nastygunz]

Wow!...you are living the life my friend...beautiful fish and water!

[FinsnFur]

Very nice!
Man I love that first pic! 

[Okanagan]

Very nice!
Man I love that first pic! 

Thank you!

Went back for some more of the same.  Slow morning and I caught one extra big female, of six fish total I saw caught among about 80 people.  My upper point of a gravel bar wasn't crowded at all.  Guy next to me 40-50 feet away caught an 18 lb. Chinook but they had opened commercial netting downriver and almost nothing was getting through to us. It takes 2-3 days after a commercial opening for us to get catchable numbers again.

Nearby forest fire started overnight and made for extra red sunrise.  I played around with the yak pics for a minute but didn't take much time off fishing and now that I'm home I see more of what could be done with this pose...

[pitw]

Have fun man as it sure likes a place to do dat.

[FinsnFur]

Gorgeous pics...

[nastygunz]

Spectacular!  My buddies son and grandson are up in Alaska somewhere for two weeks salmon fishing.

[Okanagan]

Spectacular!  My buddies son and grandson are up in Alaska somewhere for two weeks salmon fishing.

Nasty, really wish you and Jim could join me for a morning.  Jim would wear out the shutter on his super camera.  There are lots of places to fish on the river of course.  The spot I've kind of locked onto this year is easy to fish, free of snags (a big factor to me) and has not been crowded.  Migrating fish have to swim past any point on the river so rather than chase around by paddle power I pick a spot, at least for each day, and stick with it waiting for the fish to come to me.

Got a lot of non-fishing stuff I need to get done today plus hurt my creaky old wrist pretty badly putting the yak on the Zuki roof yesterday so am taking a rest this morning, slept in till 5 AM (felt delicious), and will smoke what's left of our fresh salmon today. 

A man with a yellow tail dragger airplane and big tundra tires lands on a gravel bar across the river from me each morning, fishes awhile and then flies away.   

[nastygunz]

Id have to be dragged off the river  

[JohnP]

Nasty & Jim get an invite and I don't, guess I know where I stand.   At any rate nice pictures and even nicer story and fish.  Mandy and her two boys just got back from a week of trout fishing in the high country.  She is planning a fishing trip to Alaska for next month I'll have to show here this post - maybe she'll come visit ya.

[nastygunz]

 Where did the name sockeye come from?

[Okanagan]

Where did the name sockeye come from?

didn't know the origin so Googled and found this:

The name "sockeye" is an anglicization of suk-kegh (sθə́qÉ™yÌ"), its name in Halkomelem, the language of the indigenous people along the lower reaches of the Fraser River (one of British Columbia's many native Coast Salish languages). Suk-kegh means "red fish".

John, you are ALWAYS welcome.  At our age and mobility, you and I can sip drinks under a sun (or rain) canopy and BBQ up whatever Jim and Nasty bring in.  I am so creaky I have trouble getting into and out of the kayak, and am so sore and banged up I didn't go today.

For some reason, after ten years or so of fishing the Fraser in my kayak, I've never seen another kayaker fishing on the river.  I've seen a few canoes and a few tripper yaks but nobody using them to fish.  Yesterday morning when I pulled up in the dark to unload my kayak and launch from a spot at the end of an island, I said "Good morning" to the dark form of a man standing close by where I set down the kayak in the edge of the water.  He said good morning and added, "So you are the kayaker." 

I said "Yep,"  and a few beats too late I thought to say, "That bad, eh?"  but my timing was too late and I didn't.

Then across the channel to my chosen gravel bar, a fellow fishing next to me turned out to be someone I'd met a couple of years ago in the snows of a late mule deer buck season 200 miles inland.  He said, "You're the hard core coot who drives up there to hunt an evening and morning and sleeps in his Suzuki!"  (He did not call me a coot but his perception was clear enough.)  He and his Dad are camped up the island for a week of sockeye fishing and I stopped for a cup of his coffee on my way out.

[nastygunz]

My buddys son and grandson are fishing in Seawood, at a fly in place called the Rainbow Lodge!

[Okanagan]

Two grandsons here from Pennsylvania, ages 8 and 11.  When I said that I'd take them 4 wheeling out to a salmon fishing spot, the older boy asked his mother, "What is 4 wheeling?"

His mom turned to my wife and said, "That's why I bring them out here from Pennsylvania."

When I turned the hubs in on the lifted Suzuki I explained 4 wheel drive to grandsons.  We found a river section deeper than I preferred but drove across it and straight up a STEEP bouldery bank that quads had been going up, then on through a muddy lane stopping to eat blackberries and looking for a bear.  The boys loved it of course.  We watched a salmon being landed, combat lines of fishermen, very few fish.  There was one place where fishermen were spaced out with a gap and I decided to fish for a few minutes even though it was slow and nobody had caught anything there for a long time.

Zowie, I got a dose of luck.  I caught a large one my second cast, then another.  With fishermen near it is not good etiquette to mess up their fishing by having small boys learn and bumble into the lines of others. But I pre-coached the boys, hooked a third fish and let each take a turn.  The younger one could barely hang on to the rod.   Then I reeled it up within 15 feet of shore and the older one landed the wild surging fish from there.  Two fish limit and we released that one.  They were pumped.

Fish were suddenly coming past that spot and others were catching a few but we did the gunslinger thing of walking up, catching our limit, and heading home.  Wife thinks I am awful.  Grandkids think I am an awesome fisherman and that is OK with me.  There is a huge random luck factor with sockeye, and a few evenings ago with wife along, two young men caught four within 30 minutes beside me while I got skunked. 

When we landed the first fish, the older boy asked, "Can we have it for supper?"  So last evening we had a mix of salmon cubes in a zesty sauce, hot smoked salmon and corn on the cob.  Summer fixin's.

[JohnP]

Grandkids - God's gift to us.

[pitw]

Grandkids - God's gift to us.

I ain't exactly what one would call religious so am wondering why god would hate me.

[nastygunz]

 I got sockeye once when I pinched an Italian girls ass at a rolling stones and J Geils band concert in Italy but that's a whole Nother story  🇺🇸

[FinsnFur]

Nasty 

[nastygunz]

😇😇😇😇😇😇

[Okanagan]

Some updates:

On Monday , the day after my two grandsons and I hit hot fishing and quick catches, a friend and I fished for four hours in the afternoon/evening sun without getting a bite.  Hundreds of fishermen and we saw three fish caught.  I get tired after hours of flinging and retrieving a 2 ounce sinker in swift current.

My friend stayed over and the next morning we had our limit of two apiece before 7:00 AM. 



I hooked and played 8 fish to get my two and he hooked three to land two.  I lost several of mine in six inches of water as I landed them and got considerable fight out of every one before losing it.



  I hooked a BIG Chinook and lost it.  Felt like a snag, but moved just enough to know it was alive.  Slow, ponderous, it would move upstream against my drag and swift current, hold a bit, then move on up farther, always upstream.  I had it on 1 1/2 to 2 minutes and it just came off.  It never did really start to fight yet, which is the way many big fish act.

This morning I worked on my senility status.  Slept in till 4:30, headed out with kayak and a fly rod hoping and expecting to access a gravel island with so few fishermen that I could fly fish for sockeye if they were in close like they were yesterday.  Unloaded the kayak among a few fishermen and could see that my island across the channel was totally deserted.  I would have it all to myself-- and then I realized that I had left my paddle home.  I'd feel worse about that were not that I did the same kind of forgetful things when I was in my 20's.




I went back to where the boys and I caught fish, where the combat line of fishermen is spaced out well, 30-40 feet apart, and took the spot of a young man who had just limited out.  I hooked and played four fish to land two, within about 20 minutes.  Lots of people catching fish.  Heavy smoke from forest fires.