Humptulips Salmon Slam 1

I had a great time on the Humptulips River yesterday with super-angler Scott Sypher and Steve "Stam" Maris, catching a mixed bag of king, silver, and chum salmon. We weren't alone either, as nearly every driftboat in Washington descended on the river as it dropped into prime shape. I hammered a dark silver on my third cast of the day with a blue/silver Vibrax as we drifted towards our first hunker-down-and-sit-for-a-while anchor stop.

Anchoring in a primo travel slot it took just a few seconds for Steve's rod to double over with a high 20's king that we released after a sporty battle. We sat in this particular spot for around an hour and a half, releasing a couple more bronze kings, several chums, and some silvers. One bright 12 pound silver ended up in the box before the bite shut off. Not wanting to shoe horn our way into the mass of boats anchored in the prime floatfishing water we meandered off downstream.

With most of the fishable water covered with boats we found a run halfway down that wasn't occupied and went to work, deploying freshly wrapped K-15 Kwikfish. Chums, silvers, and kings were rolling everywhere and we missed a couple of short takedowns before my 27 pound king slammed the middle Kwiky for good. I did my usual "I think it's a chum, no maybe it's a king, or a silver…hmmm, it's a king…I think" routine as the fish burrowed around the bottom of the hole, eventually finding a pile of debris and sticks to tangle up in. Some handy sculling by Scotty allowed me to unwrap the fish and Steve scooped it into the net.  

After a couple of quick photos we dropped the plugs back into the run and got into a totally wide open chum bite, doubling up several times and barely getting the rods back in the water before they'd get slammed. Loads of fun and laughs! A big thanks to both Steve and Scott for such a fun day on the water. Can't wait to do it again.

Scotty Sypher put me into this 27 pound Humptulips Chinook.

Stam works over yet another hard fighting chum salmon.