North Shore Pink Salmon

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roughfish29
roughfish29's picture
North Shore Pink Salmon
<p>So I&#39;m a few weeks late on this report, but thought i&#39;d share anyways.</p> <p>It was getting towards the end of september and I was in a drought. Having not caught anything all that interesting in quite some time, I was itching for a crazy fishing adventure. So after a bit of brainstorming I decided on Pink Salmon. Why not? I still&nbsp;didn&#39;t have any salmon on my&nbsp;lifelist, I was seeing reports that they were being caught, and I&#39;ve wanted to catch a salmon since I was a little kid. Not wanting to go alone, I contacted basically all of my usual fishing partners in crime. Eventually I convinced my buddy Sam who lives in Bemidji to meet me in Gooseberry Falls State park, and work our way north from there.</p> <p>So at 4am on October 1st, I pointed the jeep north. The jeep&nbsp;was packed with&nbsp;one spinning rod, one fly rod, some tackle, and a metric shitload of redbull and tenacity.</p> <p>I met Sam at the Gooseberry a little after 8 am. Some scouting was done, no pinks to be seen. So we started our way north, checking most of the creeks we passed. I didn&#39;t want to&nbsp;fish unless we could SEE the bastards. Eventually we stopped at the Temperance River. Right away we could see pods of Salmon spawning on the shallow gravel.</p> <p>Game on.</p> <p>I started off throwing a little jig and had a bunch of lazy follows but no takes. Sam, pounded one almost instantly on an expertly hand tied half crawler and split shot....</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0079.jpg" /></p> <p>Awesome! Yay! Success!</p> <p>Sam sat back refreshed his caffeine levels, and let me have at it for a while.</p> <p>So I casted</p> <p>and casted...</p> <p>and casted...</p> <p>for about an hour and a half to the same pod of fish. I don&#39;t think my feet left the same spot.</p> <p>Then there was a thump. That thump turned into a hooked fish. Having already foul hooked one, I didn&#39;t want to get too excited too fast. Then the fish got closer and I could see the jig in his mouth.Ok, time to get excited. Sam slid the net under the fish and just like that, a childhood goal comes to a close....</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0088.jpg" /></p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0089.jpg" /></p> <p>Man, they are nice looking fish</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0092.jpg" /></p> <p>After sending him on his way to go make more little Salmon, Sam and I decided we&#39;ve harrased these fish enough, and we continued to trek north. Now, almost everywhere we stopped had at leaste a couple salmon hanging around. Though fishing conditions looked tough in alot of these streams. Finally, we found one nice little creek with a big, deep, slow pool right before the creek dumped into the big lake. This big, deep, slow pool was also chock full of Salmon. Only these Pinks had a much nicer average size than the ones we saw in the Temperance.</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0099.jpg" /></p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0098.jpg" /></p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0096.jpg" /></p> <p>So Sam brought a handfull of jigs, and i switched up tactics and broke out the fly rod. I tried an egg pattern for a little while with no luck, and a small wholly bugger was equally rejected. Then I drifted a small, green beadhead nymph through the deepest part of the pool when the line tightened up. Swing. Another nice buck was hooked. This fish put up an awesome fight on my little 5 weight too. This was my biggest Pink Salmon and probably my favorite fly rod catch to date.</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0115.jpg" /></p> <p>And right after that one was released, Sam got another nice buck to smack his jig</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx312/roughfish29/Mobile%20Uploads/SAM_0112.jpg" /></p> <p>That was the last Salmon that we caught. We went a little further north, and we ended up turning around somewhere a little north of Tofte. But what a day. Craziest day-trip I&#39;ve done in quite some time. Nothing beats catching beautiful fish in beautiful locations.</p> <p>BIG shoutout to Fishingpals4life for helping me out with jig selection to get me my lifer! Thanks again dude.</p>
UpperMi roughangler
UpperMi roughangler's picture
Awesome Humpbacks!

Great fish man. In my experience it seems that the males of all spawning salmon species are much more willing to bite. If you look at my Pinkie in the recent standard freshwater lifelist entries, it is obvious that it's a male (with milt running out and humped back). Like I said before, the males seem to be more willing to bite because they're more aggressive than females (like in most animals). Big male Kings seem to hit spawn sacks unlike any female in the creeks I fish. I think the females don't really want to eat their eggs as much as the males who want to destroy them hoping that only their spawn will survive.

 

Well, great catches once again and hopefully you can get an even bigger one next year.

johnny
johnny's picture
daaaaaaaaaaang

Wish my fall wasn't totally fncked, would have loved to fish for humpies.

Just your run of the mill Orvis Boy.  Fly fishing elitist.  I cannot hear you over my false casting.  All guided trips every day.

Fishing for compliments since 88.
 

Divemaster
Divemaster's picture
Great fish! What color and si

Great fish! What color and size jigs were you fishing with? Wish I could've done some fishing at trout run two weeks ago, would've been a nice lifer male pink there but if I even took a rod down there I'd get my a** handed to me haha.

drawer.bli
drawer.bli's picture
Awesome fish! I always though

Awesome fish! I always thought pink salmon looked cool...

And that is some beautiful water...

Hengelaar
Hengelaar's picture
Sweet!

Man, those are some sooper cool humpies you fellers got.

And look at those beautiful, rocky, northern streams.

 

I enjoyed that read, man. Congrats on a cool lifer and a damn rad trip.

Fishn sure is neat

Corey
Corey's picture
Nice Job!

North shore pinks are really tough, you guys put on a clinic!

Eli
Eli's picture
Nice pinkers there! Interesti

Nice pinkers there! Interesting how different they look from the ocean-run ones I encountered in BC.

Eli

 

 

andy
andy's picture
Nice job 29!

Them bastards can be tight-lipped, man.  Especially when the sun is high.    Kudos on getting one to strike

Surfraider
That's a cool looking fish

Its amazing how some animals transform for spawning. Nice catch.

Deftik
Deftik's picture
\m/

\m/

Mike B
Mike B's picture
Good job man, are you allowed

Good job man, are you allowed to keep those or are they catch and release only during the spawn? Just curious about how they cook up.

mike b

roughfish29
roughfish29's picture
Thanks for the replies you gu
Thanks for the replies you guys! Divemaster, I got my first one on a 2 inch blue and white tinsel jig and my buddy was using a little orange and black mini mite.
roughfish29
roughfish29's picture
And Mike, you can keep them b
And Mike, you can keep them but once they enter the rivers it's not long until they start to deteriorate alive and their meat becomes no good.
johnny
johnny's picture
Zombie Salmon is a very real

Zombie Salmon is a very real thing.

Just your run of the mill Orvis Boy.  Fly fishing elitist.  I cannot hear you over my false casting.  All guided trips every day.

Fishing for compliments since 88.
 

Kokanee killer
Kokanee killer's picture
Nice I always wanted to get a

Nice I always wanted to get a pink someday someday

good fishing