Skagit Gillnet Opener

[Robbo]

Very wise of me to fish the Skagit the last couple of days right in the middle of a three day tribal gillnet opener. Oh well...still got to fish with some good friends and had a great time. I was able to pluck Jim Spane from Spane Buildings and Don Torset from Truck Vault out of their offices for the day, which is quite rare. Good times with these guys!

Not many fresh fish around at least for us. I did manage to hook into this hawg hooknose yesterday morning on a Vibrax though

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Yes...my hand is down my pants

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Here's Jim Spane yarding on a big chum that he hooked on a twitched jig.

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One of my old time fishing buddies Chad Newton jumped in the boat today and we tore up the pinks. Here's a dandy that he took home for the smoker

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Since the gillnets were getting most of the fresh coho in the river today we switched tactics and twitched jigs in the deep, dark green water in the lumber. The result...we roughed'em up pretty good

[SCHANKER]

wow! getting out to the old stomping grounds robbo!

[Brandon]

Haha Wow that moldy pink is awesome!

[Dan Carney]

I was in the lower river yesterday (Gardner ramp). We pulled out two nice silvers, a zombie humpy and one buck that looked to be in really good shape (didn't keep it). We also caught a couple dollies and cuts. Everyone complains about the nets, but at times I have done really well fishing a couple hundred yards above them.
L8R
Dan

[Robbo]

I don't get to complaining about the nets much anymore Dan, just wish I would've known they were in as I might've adjusted my days a bit. In low water like this they can put a dent in the action and that's exactly what occurred. Once we made some adjustments to the "program" yesterday we began putting up some good numbers of coho. If a guy can get out early next week the fishing should be lights out again

[Dan Carney]

Robbo,
Hope I didn't sound like I was getting on your case. I hear a lot of people complain about nets around here and I was just making a generalized comment. They do catch a lot of fish when the nets are in, but not all of them. I sure prefer the way they do it on the Skagit by drifting and pulling the nets every few hundred yards; as opposed to the set Gill nets on the lower C that kill everything for days at a time before they pull them.
L8R
Dan

[Robbo]

No worries at all. As far the nets on the Skagit go you'll find both eddy nets and drift nets up and down the river. They do a lot of drifting up around the Lyman/Hamilton area in the big long gravelly runs up there and also down just below Wooley in some stretches where there's not as much woody debris. They both catch their fair share. In low water conditions like we have right now it can really, really slow things down. On years where we've got some water it's not quite as noticeable though.

A friend that works for the Swin's said they pulled their nets out early and left about 2,000 coho on the table to keep from hitting the chums too hard. The nets that are in now are from the Upper Skagit tribe and guess what...they are catching plenty of chums. I'm not sure what their quota is, but I hope they lay off the chums early so we can get that run built back up again.