Last week me and three of my buddies headed over to the Feather River for a day of fishing. Now being a bass fisherman, I had never fished in a large river before and the thought of it was both scary and exciting. We were going to do some salmon fishing on this fine spring day. It was a Friday and none of us had class so we basically had the entire river to ourselves. Now I've done a lot of trout fishing in the past in small streams and I absolutely loved it, but I wasn't kidding myself, this wasn't going to be even close to the same thing.
As we approached the river I could hear the current flowing fast and loud. It sounded nice at first, but the closer we got, the louder the current became. We soon arrived at the river banked and I nearly wet my pants. This river was really moving, and I didn't know how I was supposed to wade in it without getting swept away. It was pretty early in the morning and none of us felt like fighting the current just yet so we decided to start off salmon fishing from the bank.
Since we were all experienced fisherman, none of us were using live bait. It wouldn't have done much good anyway since salmon don't eat after they have spawned. I was using a huge panther martin lure on my bass rod. I sent out the first cast and immediately felt a fish on the other end of my line. I set the hook and the salmon nearly tore my arm off. We fought for a good 25 minutes before I was able to reel that baby in.
Now if you have fished for bass before you can tell how big it is based on how hard it is fighting you. I've caught a few monster bass in my day but none of them put up a fight like this. I swear I thought I had a whale on the other end of my line. When I finally started gaining some ground on the fish, I caught a glimpse of it. Now it wasn't small by bass standards, but by salmon standards it was a runt (definitely not the whale I was expecting). Anyhow, the fish finally tired and I was able to land it. My first king salmon and I felt great.
What made it even better was that my friends have all fished for salmon plenty of times in the past, yet I was the first person to catch one. To say that I bragged about it for the rest of the day would be quite the understatement. As the day progressed I managed to catch 3 more, but I had to throw 2 of them back since the limit in for the Feather River is 2 fish. All in all, it was a wonderful day. I can honestly say that I am now a big fan of salmon fishing.
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