Salmon Hole 10/28(27" Steelhead!) ***Weekend Update***

[Matt]

Randy and I killed em today! (Or they killed us) Went 2 for 6 for Steelhead, 5 of them in the first hour. First fish within 5 minutes on spawn bags we tied last night. Randy hooked into it, a nice chromed out fish, at least 5 LBS. We both hooked up a few more times but just couldn't keep the fish on!! Randy got broken off, I had one shake off, then randy hooked up and landed a 17" fish. Tried the beach for a little while, had something crush my bag but thats it. Randy tried the swirl-hole, hooked up into a PIG, got off after about 10 seconds, DAMN. Didn't get to see how big it was. Hitting the river again tomorrow, tying more bags tonight. Thanks everyone! Pics of the rest of the fish will come probably tomorrow or Monday.

[tamiron]

As usual, great work!

[vtfishin]

Way to go Matt! Nice fish!

[Salmoneye]

You have that hole dialed in!

IceChunk should get off his old butt and get back in there...

[champlain fisher]

Nice chromer - they are a blast this time of year.

[gr8vermont]

Great stuff, Matt. Wish I lived back in Burlington area again! By the way, while admiring the fish in your net I've also been taking a good look at the net itself. Been looking for a good hook-resistant rubber net that's gentle on the fish. Could you show a photo of the entire net and share some info on where I might get one. Thanks very much.

[Budgetbender]

Matt, you never seize to amaze me, your reports are incredible. Hope we can put
A good report together for the upcoming frostbite dirby!

[dreamcatcher]

What can I say that has'nt been said Matt, keep after them!

[Matt]

Great stuff, Matt. Wish I lived back in Burlington area again! By the way, while admiring the fish in your net I've also been taking a good look at the net itself. Been looking for a good hook-resistant rubber net that's gentle on the fish. Could you show a photo of the entire net and share some info on where I might get one. Thanks very much.

Thanks!

The net is a Frabil C&R Landing Net. I bought it from Cabelas for only $25. but now they don't seem to carry them. I checked Amazon and they do carry them here
http://www.amazon.com/Frabill-Deluxe-Ca ... 468&sr=8-4 . It's heavier than other nets, but since you're paying 1/3 the price of another C&R type net, it's worth it and I don't notice that much of a difference. Rubber material itself seems tough, haven't had any rips or tears. It's large enough for even bigger fish, probably up to 34".

As for the rest of the report for the weekend, Saturday was on fire! The first hour we had about 5 hookups, only landed one. Randy had the biggest on that we seen, a nice 5 LB Steelhead that broke him off after running straight towards us, holding in slack water, and then jetting off away from us, launching out of the water at 100 MPH. Tiny texted me later in the afternoon to ask how things went, told him the Hole was on fire, he headed down with a friend later in the day and he said his friend lost a LL, bummer! Always fun to fight them though.


I lost count of the fish we had on at that point, but Randy managed to land this 17" Steel a little while later.



I went out and bought some new Yo-Zuri's to toss out hoping for a Laker, but we couldn't get them to touch any artificial we threw.

I told Randy it was time for my secret weapon! (I do this all the time) Took some advice from a fellow LCU member, tied on a sucker spawn imitation, tipped it with a piece of crawler (almost the same setup he told me about, only a little different) A few drifts later I was hooked up into 18" of Chrome, laughing at Randy for mocking my "secret weapon".



Hit the swirl-hole for a bit, Randy was hooked up into a PIG for a few seconds, broke him off way out in the rapids a little while after.

I threw out at the beach as far as I could do, then let even more line out. Tried staying in the faster water as much as possible to "lure" a few Steelhead to the spawn bag. A few minutes later WAM WAM! Waited for him to start running....nothing! Reeled it in, bag was crushed, tried repeating that bite but got nothing.

We called it a day after that, things started slowing down.

Headed down after sunrise yesterday, spinnners and Yo-Zuri's first....we need a big female Laker for some eggs! No luck

Went to spawn bags and 15-20 minutes later Randy hooked into a nice Steelhead, 22". He kept it to give to a neighbor, and we needed the eggs(although a bit small) anyway.



Got shut off after that, couldn't even get a bite. We threw our whole arsenal at them, nada!

Went down this morning after tying up more bags. Got there, they had 90% of the flow of water going over the falls, current was just madness. All of the current changed throughout the Hole, it was much harder to fish. We threw bag after bag, getting hung up because of the undercurrent. Not even a tap for an hour. Checked the water temp on my phone for kicks..

42?! What! Talk about cold snaps making fishing hard...We said screw it, falls were still roaring, current wasn't ideal, temp plummited. We headed home and called it a day.

Don't know when I'll be down again, hopefully the water warms up or something. If I do go down, it'll probably be late afternoon when the water is at its warmest.

Thanks for looking, I'll see you guys next weekend at the Shootout!!

[Sleepswithdafishes]

Matt you da man!!!! Sleeps

[plantstone]

Wow! A great thread filled with great fish! Have fun while they're hitting!

[WildFisherWoman]

What a great bunch of catches! Impressive for sure! Keep em coming!