Next day was the doozy!

Awesome views. Nice salmon, nice seeing that you didn't suffer too long without a bite. Not sure about that sculpin, definitely not the Paiute I caught while I was up that way. Looking forward to more.

Nice to get a little royal treatment Tom! I can feel the mellowness in the pics. Been seeing the livingstons for sale out in Sequiem among other places so it's nice to see where I very well may end up around, and it looks welcoming.

Friday morning kicked off with packing the truck—quick and easy. Before long, we were rolling out on a familiar route I hadn't traveled in over a decade. Eleven years, to be exact.
We made time for good coffee and browsed a few tackle shops en route, soaking in the slow pace since we didn't need to meet our guide until noon. He had a court appearance earlier that morning—just part of the rhythm of life on the Rez.



We stopped at Lake Crescent to a beautiful scene.  Karry was telling me the Beardslee Trout have been crushing the dying Kokanee this time of year and we should see some big explosions.



Holy smokes we did!  I wish I brought my Lake gear, but I had Salmon in my mind.  We saw some huge trout crush some Kokanee up top!  It was quite amazing to see!





Tons of eagles this trip.  I've always seen a few, but they seemed to be everywhere on this trip!



We pass through Forks so I had to take a few pics for my "Twilight" wife and daughters.







Unfortunately we had to pass 15 culvert constructions which took up to a 5-minute wait on before moving forward but it's for dam removals and opening up the culverts for wild strains I guess.



We stopped at the Oxbow for a quick piss break and to stretch the legs.  Soon this area will be filled with Salmon.







We get back on the road and it's still another 1.5 hours to get there.  It still gets me seeing the trees cleared from logging, but I know we need our wood.



More of Karry's nemesis along the way.  I think 15 in total.



We stop at the Inn to get a room before fishing since we were going to spend the next 2 days fishing.



 

To our surprise, it was booked and everything in the area was apparently booked also.  Karry was perplexed, but we found a place at the Notel-Motel... Basically a rundown motel in the middle of the woods.

We meet up with our guide and follow him to the river.  Squatch knows this path since we took it with Frank 14 years ago at 70 MPH in a tiny truck.  Same road and just as scary when trucks were coming from the other direction.





We get to the launch and get the jet boat in the water.  Jet boats are only allowed on the Rez, so it made things easy for us.



First Fish Karry strikes first as usual!





I get bites, but it's back to back Sculpin!  The second one was huge, but I only took pics of the first.  I could feel the pressure to get a salmon! (Potentially a new species for my Life List)





Karry was rubbing it in as I missed my last two salmon bites on the berries.



Beautiful King!



I did the "Hero Drift" which is similar to the "Way Way Back" method and got slammed!  This one was a real one and my first real King Salmon!



We catch some Jacks up to 24" which didn't qualify to even want to keep I guess, so we just released them right away.
The water was low, so we had a tough time finding deep holes and it gets dark up there really fast so we made a final move.
Salmon were jumping everywhere, but the didn't want anything we threw at them.  We were twitching feather jigs, spinners and floating berries.
I finally get another good one on the berries!  These things are awesome and fight to the death!



The fish were now going crazy 30 yards downstream so we lifter anchor and drifted back.  Karry get a Coho on the jigging rod and I get walloped on the berries again!  Another toad King!  This one was definitely long and skinny though.



We kept 4 from the dozen and decided to call it the day since we still had a 45 minute ride back to the notel and it was getting dark quick.



We get back in time to watch the long ass baseball game (Karry is a die hard Mariners fan).  They finally won it in 15 innings, so I could finally get some sleep.  Hahaha

We prepped for the next morning's float trip with Charle's on the Queet's river, so a different river all together.

I'll try to get the next day's trip up later today.

Until then, I hope you are enjoying the read!

This topic has been moved to Freshwater Boat Fishing Reports.

https://www.prehistoricsoulforum.com/index.php?topic=5737.0

Well, after going back and forth, I pulled the trigger to do some salmon fishing up in Washington with Karry.  This job search has been draining my soul and I needed something to give me a lift.

The flight was really early and full to boot.  I had to get into vacation mode on the plane with a good coffee with my cookie.  lol



Arrived at SeaTac and grabbed the rental.  Traffic was unbearable and it took a while to get out of the chaos and into the country where I felt all my issues melt away.



Soon as I got past the Tacoma Narrows bridge, things started to really mellow out.



The second narrows bridge is where I knew I was getting into a little bit of Rainforest heaven.



I get close and stop into a burger bar joint in Downtown Sequim.  Burger and Beer were fantastic!



I stop down at the shop and was greeted by some of the coolest guys in the business.  I sat and chatted with Bill and his uncle for a while and looked over his ever expanding custom rod collection!  I took video but need to figure out how to post it on the forum...



Karry was working his butt off since he took Friday off also to get some weekday fishing in.  We talked for a bit and I was pretty stoked when they kept introducing me as "Pro-staff in San Diego".  I felt like a kid again.



I was going to rent a motel room, but Karry said they had a Camper out back that would be much better.  It was all hooked up and to be honest, felt like I was on a camping trip!



Home for a week.



My view out of the door.



We started prepping for fishing on Friday and I checked out one of Karry's tackle rooms.  All 3 were filled to the brim!



Time to make "Karry's Berries".  Special curing process for the salmon eggs.  It was quite the procedure but well worth the work you had to put in.  Steve remembers the process.







Packed them into the custom berry holders and we were ready for Friday!





We ran into some issues on getting someone for the morning to get us out.  Apparently, the kid had a morning court date but could get us out in the afternoon.  Good thing is we weren't leaving at 3:00 am, so we had time for coffee and take our time in the morning to get up there.

What a hell of a first day.  I'll try to get Day 2 up later today or possibly tomorrow morning at the latest.

To be continued!

I'd love to go again.

I asked Karry for a shirt for you but they only had up to XL. Apparently most of their stuff was given out at shows this year.
Said you'll have to come up for a hat. Lol

I have to agree. When we went up there years ago their hospitality was impeccable.

I just have to give a shout out to Bill and Karry Batson for the incredible trip up in the Olympic Peninsula.  I was quite honored when they introduced me to the staff as their San Diego Pro-Staffer. Something a younger me always wanted to be but never really expected to hear from such a big company.





I have a lot of pictures to sort through now....