An Attempt at Atlantic Salmon

And I nearly a chance at one too.

I have been extraordinarily bored with skunking out on small streams. I needed a change. I wanted to do something that nobody really does that often, something so incredibly useless in success rate that I wouldn't necessarily be the reason for the skunk.
Salmon. In a river that has very few in it right now. And, at a time when the conditions make fishing that river a pain in the ass.

I headed out around 11:00. The water was up and stained, but you take what you get. I started at an extraordinarily deep pool, at the deepest around 20ft! For those of you that know the river I'm talking about and don't believe this statement, you'd just have to see it. It is impressive. I fished the tail, couldn't get to the run above in the current conditions, and blanked.

I fished the pool above a set of riffles for an hour, blanked.

On my way down to the next pool I would fish I found a small stream. I poked around a bit with an egg pattern and caught one small Brooky, but I was not there for Brookies.

Back down in the river, I reached the fishiest looking pool so far. It was fairly deep with a good run and tail out, and some nice boulders. I changed to a smaller pink and yellow wet fly. On the eighth and tenth swings I god good pulls that were quite dissimilar to the take of a trout. I was getting something! Even though this is what I was hoping for it was far from expected. I didn't get anything in the same spot on the next few passes, so I changed flies. This time there was a halfhearted bump and I very briefly felt a heavy fish shake it's head before it spit the fly. I was disappointed and elated at the same time.

Further downstream I tried a slower, deep side channel. I saw a big wake that signaled the presence of some sort of enormous fish. Salmon? Big Brown Trout? I will never know, I never caught it. I ended the day watching a duck and warming my hands in my armpits.