Swift Creek. Thanksgiving day 2008
It’s Thanksgiving morning, the house is full of company and my sister and brother in law Craig are down from Alaska. Craig’s a retired Alaska fisheries biologist, flexible enough to do things on short notice and a knowledgeable and fun guy to fish with. So to make room in the house and get a little exercise before we settled in to an afternoon of over eating, I suggested we check out the upper Skagit for Chums and Dollies. The morning was beautiful but cold with clear water and lots of fish that had moved up early. We both fished 8 wt. fly rods with high density sink tips, 12lb. test leaders and pretty much spent the whole day with purple egg sucking leach patterns. Craig’s first fish was a native 18 – 20” dolly which he released. After that was a succession of heavy and very strong chums.
We were pretty much into fish the whole time we were on the river and frequently both into fish at the same time. I’ve always sort of timed the beginning of the upriver chum fishery as around thanksgiving, however, this year the run seems to be maybe as much as 3 weeks earlier than years past so while we found a lot of fish, they were farther into spawning condition than I’d expected. None the less, we had a very nice morning, releasing around 6 to 10 fish each and got home by 2:30 to an exceptionally nice Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.
It’s Thanksgiving morning, the house is full of company and my sister and brother in law Craig are down from Alaska. Craig’s a retired Alaska fisheries biologist, flexible enough to do things on short notice and a knowledgeable and fun guy to fish with. So to make room in the house and get a little exercise before we settled in to an afternoon of over eating, I suggested we check out the upper Skagit for Chums and Dollies. The morning was beautiful but cold with clear water and lots of fish that had moved up early. We both fished 8 wt. fly rods with high density sink tips, 12lb. test leaders and pretty much spent the whole day with purple egg sucking leach patterns. Craig’s first fish was a native 18 – 20” dolly which he released. After that was a succession of heavy and very strong chums.
We were pretty much into fish the whole time we were on the river and frequently both into fish at the same time. I’ve always sort of timed the beginning of the upriver chum fishery as around thanksgiving, however, this year the run seems to be maybe as much as 3 weeks earlier than years past so while we found a lot of fish, they were farther into spawning condition than I’d expected. None the less, we had a very nice morning, releasing around 6 to 10 fish each and got home by 2:30 to an exceptionally nice Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.
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