A friend and I showed up at Tokul creek around noon, two days after the early opener. As we walked upstream looking for an open hole, all we heard was, “you should have been here two days ago!”
We picked our spot and about 40 minutes in, I hooked up a nice little buck. Even when running low, Tokul is a swift little creek, so I did my best to get him on the beach fairly quick. Two bonk’s with a rock, a quick pull of the gills and another mark goes on the punchcard. As I begin replacing my leader, excited to get my line back in, my buddy says” lets get a photo!” From the river bank, I grab the fish and take it to the water for a quick rinse. The moment I touched the fish to the water, it takes off!
Yup, bloody, torn gills and rock dents in its head, that fish shot to the hole on the opposite side of the river!
As I watch it go in amazement, I heard a fairly large sigh from the nearby anglers. Head held high, I switch into spectator mode and with just 10 minutes left until we planned to head out, my friend fishing the hole below says, “Come check out this fish, looks hung up on some gear!” Sure enough, I look and it appears stuck, just under an overhanging stump.
After watching it struggle for 30-40 seconds, it begins to slide down river, side up! And now I have a better view of that fish and,….wait.. are those gills hanging out?…#@!*...it’s my fish!
At this point, the fish appears to finally be dead, and in quick route downstream.
A big thanks goes out to the fellow angler on the opposite bank who already witnessed the picture ordeal, and was kind enough to grab my fish before it got swept away! He then walked it back across the creek to me, where I was able to thank him and resume the original goal.
Short, exciting visit!
Also ran into Gary Chittim, Environmental specialist for King 5 TV
He was doing a report on the early steelhead closures of PS rivers.
Said he grew up fishing in Oregon and has always been a fan of fish!
http://www.king5.com/news/environment/S ... 81433.html
- Tokul lunch..JPG (49.48 KiB) Viewed 5967 times
