Back On The Hunt

The fall salmon run has begun.

Labor Day weekend marked the beginning of the season on the Yakima River, but we headed down to the gorge.

Last year, if you remember, this strategy backfired and we spent literally hundreds of dollars wasting time. This time I had no expectations. I was really just looking forward to the last camping trip of the year. In fact, we left so late Friday we did not fish at all. We had planned to camp along the Klickitat River so we could fish for salmon and steelhead right where we camped.

Since we arrived well after dark, finding a spot at the place we wanted was impossible because of the number of people already camped and the low profile of the new minivan. (big rocks are hard to navigate around at night)

So I drove and drove until I finally found a place upriver that wasn't already full of other campers. I was actually astonished that there was nobody camped at this spot.

Until 6:00 am anyway.

I woke up to the sound of some asshole backing his diesel F250 and boat trailer less than a foot from our tent.

Apparently the place we camped was what passes for a boat launch on that river. I got out of the tent ready to kill this man. (He was very apologetic, which saved him from a Texas-sized ass whipping) The kids and Robin were on that side of the tent.

So we packed up camp and left that spot before others decided to do the same.

After heading to a small town for supplies, I decided to take Robin to see the Mt. Adams Ice Caves. The caves are actually old lava tubes created by ancient lava flows from the now quiet volcano.

She loved it although we didn't get to explore too far into the caves. We only fished for a couple of hours that afternoon before driving all over the area looking for a nice place to camp. Four hours of driving later we ended up finding a spot at the first place we had come to on the Klickitat the night before, but were unable to see a way around the boulders sticking out of the ground.

Anyway, I brought along our gas grill since the state is under a fire ban right now. Dinner was great. We stopped at a farm earlier in the day and picked some fresh corn on the cob and tomatoes. I have never been a big corn on the cob fan, but we really love the sweet corn they grow up here and grill some quite often.

The next morning instead of fishing the river all day we headed to back to Drano Lake.

An hour later, I had caught my first salmon. A 25 pounder, it was the biggest fish I had ever caught but pretty average.

We took a lunch break and I pulled out the grill and made some jerk chicken. (I didn't trust leaving the grill at camp.)

We had planned on leaving as as soon as we were done eating, but I decided to give the place another shot so Robin might have a chance to snag one before we hit the river. She battled for over an hour trying to coax a salmon into action, but it just wasn't in the mood.

I was trying to get a steelhead to take a snap ata plain silver spoon when out of nowhere I see this enormous gaping mouth of a salmon chasing the spoon a few feet in front of me. It takes a swipe and I set the hook on a 40 pound beauty.

Opening weekend. Two salmon. I was excited and making a scene, which I noticed gathered a few frowns from frustrated anglers down the shore and across the lake.

Nobody else was catching ANY and I caught two.

I guess all those weeks of frustration last year finally paid off.