This was an interesting day. We haven't had much rain so we didn't anticipate much. While some early week rain saw the Pike rise to about 2.3 feet, we didn't think many fish would've come in. We were actually quite wrong. There were tons of fish in the park. Our first pool had 6 kings. On my 3rd or 4th cast, I hooked up, and 20 minutes and 1 trip downstream to the next bridge, I had a 31" fresh king in the net. During that fight down the river, I spooked about 10 other kings. When I got back to our spot, Anthony had 1 on, but it was foul. It was his first fight with a king, and it was enough to show him what he'll be up against.
We moved downstream and landed on a pod of about 10. Out of that, I got 2: 33" and 34". The 34" was creative; it wrapped me around a log jam and headed up stream past Anthony. He netted the fish, cut the line, and I got a badly shaped tippet and leader back. Anthony fouled another, which did a switcheroo on him, placing the hook in a dead fish and swimming away. Gross.
After all that, we headed downstream again, finding fish along the way, but the more we went downstream, the less active the fish got, and the less alive the others got. For the alive ones, they were satisfied to just move out of the way of anything we drifted.
So after 6 hours, we managed 3. Anthony came really close on a few, but they shook him off. Do some rain dances folks. We saw quite a few dead ones. I hope this season is not like that of 2 years ago.
Enjoy the pics. I took to snapping landscape photos after the bite went away.