An Early Morning on the Russian...

Rose and I got up at 2am to drive down to the Russian River and try and beat some of the people and catch the fish while they were moving. We got there and there weren't too many folks but the lower river was pretty busy for 5 in the morning (it takes about an hour and forty minutes to drive there).

It's quite a long hike up the river to the falls and the best fishing hole on the river, atleast I think. We got up there at about 6am I think and began fishing. Immediately I could see lot's of fish stacked up, more than I had on previous trips up.

So, a little background on fishing for Reds... Reds, or Sockeye's, while in the ocean feed on plankton. They don't actively target prey and go after it like other salmon species do. They swim around with their mouths open and suck down plankton. So fishing for Reds is very difficult considering they don't go after anything you throw at them. To catch these fish, you use a streamer type fly and pinch a bunch of split shot weight on your line about 18-24 inches above your fly. Reds hug the very bottom of the river so you have to flip, or cast, your line upstream and let it drag along the bottom so your fly swings down and hopefully you put it right in their face. Now if you can get it right on their nose they may bite it out of irritation or if you can floss your line through their mouth, then the current drags it through and the fly slips in the corner of their mouth. Make sense?

Well this is a difficult proposition unless you can actually see them and that can be difficult with the fast moving turbulent water. So due to the nature of fishing for Reds, you get hung up a lot. Rose had a hard time as well as me. I was constantly re-tying both of our setups. She got really cold and decided she'd had enough and just hung out on the bank taking pictures and trying to stay warm. I continued fishing and hooked numerous fish and landed three to take home. We had one fillet tonight for dinner and boy it was good. Rose broiled it in the oven with dill weed, lemon pepper, and butter on top.

Oh, and Rose wouldn't let me take any pictures of her today.

(Rose's edit to the blog: "There were reasons I wouldn't let him take my picture, plus I was the photographer for the day, I might add I took some very nice pictures of you Riley.")