Tough couple days on the river but it all came together tuesday evening with 2 fish in the net. Went 2/17 over a couple days.

These #6 Black Stonefly nymphs i tie with a pegged bead above it seems to make these fresh push Chinook go a little nutty. They definitely qualify as one of the apex predators of the great lakes system.

Fish were large and powerful again this year - cousin managed to land a 40" buck that came in at 23 lbs. Its impressive what you can land on a 12lb leader when you do your part right

I got my knuckles rapped a few times when bigger fish made hard runs, but that's the risk you take when fly fishing for these monsters. While my reel does have a drag - theres nothing you can do sometimes if these fish make a hard run except hold on. I though for sure that I was going to at least end up with some bruises on my left hand everybtime that reel handle got away from me. Yeowch lol

As you can see the hen i landed purged hard-core so no egg weight at all. She was dead empty by the time we had a chance to hook her on the scale.




33" - 10½ lbs


27" - 6½ lbs



The fly/bead combo i use

Very nice, super pics, thanks.

Wow! Nice fish.

Well done - takes patience & skill with a light leader.

thanks.

and yes its part of the game for me... ive always been a light for species tackle kind of angler. its more fun that way!

I trout fish with 3wt rods and 6x or 7x (2-3 lb) tippet. i used to use a micro-lite 4' rod with 4lb ice line to fish them before i started trout fishing with my fly rod. i fish for bass on 6-8lb (with a bite guard incase i run into a pike). i fish 6-8lb leaders for steelhead, and have landed multiple fish on an ultralight trout rod setup that way.


anyone can land these guys on 50lb braid and a hot-n-tot. we stopped over at tippy dam to checkout the sh!tshow there, and literally watched guys walking backwards towards the bank dragging fish in sideways. theres no fun in that.

id prefer to have to finess them to the net and feel some action in my rod instead of casting a 2x4 with a winch attached to it.


i fish with a 11' 7wt switch fly rod. which is a whole lot lighter than most folks will tell you to use (most recomend 9wt's - or higher!).


my PB chinook, years back when i was in traverse city fishing the boardman river , was landed on a 9' 5wt with 15lb leader. that fish came in at 32 lbs and took me >1h15 mins to put to the shore.

Lovely looking fish.
We are having Salmon this week but it is farmed not fresh.