We met our new friends from the Golden state early on the 9th and made our way into the wilderness. After a couple of quick casting refreshers and our second run of the day, Matt was on. Now they say third time is a charm and it certainly was in this case, for it was his third salmon that finally made its way to the beach. This was only after one of the most epic battles I have yet to encounter which included almost pulling Matt into the river three times as the line came tight to a knot in the backing, having him fight the fish on strip as it ran upstream through heavy water and I untangled the backing with the spool off of the reel, and finally with a 200yd run down the beach to a little eddy in the rapids where we would finally get his tail........Well Done Matt!!!
From here we found several representatives of the Sea-Run Bull Trout and shook hands with another salmon briefly
Day 2 was off to the Skagit for some dry fly fishing in the rain. The weather was not nice but there was still fish to everyones fly including a great streak on the nymph at the end of the day.
Day 3 was to be a relaxing day. Late start, sit in the boat and watch the rods and maybe even catch a sturgeon or two.......... Well as it turned out, catching we did and relaxing we did not.
There was a fish on the first rod in the water even before I could bait up the second rod and it did not quit all day. The longest the rods sat in the water without a fish on was maybe 15 minutes.....
Of course we did set the hook and miss 5 times in that 15 minutes. The day capped with Branden who had been down on the numbers landing the biggest fish of the trip and his life as well as bragging rights forever at 232cm (7'8").
This was followed closely by his brothers 222cm fish (7'4")
It was an incredible day and an awesome trip with great people from the land of golden grass.