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Large salmon, small grilse, action continues to improve
Posted 11 July 2018, 2:50 pm NDT
Guide, Nelson, shows us one of the micro grilse that we have been seeing amongst the big fish run.
(larger version)
We had a scorcher here on the Eagle yesterday with the air temperature hitting 30c here at the lodge. One would think that with temps like that we would see the river dropping like tide. Not the case. There is so much snow in the mountains that heat waves are melting it and sustaining the river. It is dropping, but at a snails pace for these temps and this time of year. It is going down 2-3 inches/day. The water temperature also very cool coming in at a brisk 59 F on our boat sonar temp sensor. That is about 15C.
The action has improved. All guides reported success yesterday with the highlining boat releasing 3 grilse and 3 salmon. Some of those grilse are undoubtably underfed. Some of the smallest and thinnest we have seen. It has been commonplace for some small ones to be amongst the behemoths the last few years. We have been calling them microgrilse. It seems whatever is happening in the ocean is taking a toll on them, however the large salmon feeding farther north appear to be in prime condition. And, we expect to see some really nice maxi grilse showing up pretty soon.
We hope the water continues to fall. Intense thunderstorms like the one yesterday evening aren't helping. The long range forcast is all sun and clouds with high temps. That should bring it down. Right now, William's rock is still awash and fishing the bathtub seems possibly impossible for this season!! But, one never knows what mother nature will do! Stay tuned though, and we'll tell ya all about it!
We usually post pictures of the trophy fish we see here at the lodge. And don't be fooled, we have a stock of beauties in our photos here today, but thought we should show you this specimen of a microgrilse. A very mackerelesque stature of a fish!
-DL
The action has improved. All guides reported success yesterday with the highlining boat releasing 3 grilse and 3 salmon. Some of those grilse are undoubtably underfed. Some of the smallest and thinnest we have seen. It has been commonplace for some small ones to be amongst the behemoths the last few years. We have been calling them microgrilse. It seems whatever is happening in the ocean is taking a toll on them, however the large salmon feeding farther north appear to be in prime condition. And, we expect to see some really nice maxi grilse showing up pretty soon.
We hope the water continues to fall. Intense thunderstorms like the one yesterday evening aren't helping. The long range forcast is all sun and clouds with high temps. That should bring it down. Right now, William's rock is still awash and fishing the bathtub seems possibly impossible for this season!! But, one never knows what mother nature will do! Stay tuned though, and we'll tell ya all about it!
We usually post pictures of the trophy fish we see here at the lodge. And don't be fooled, we have a stock of beauties in our photos here today, but thought we should show you this specimen of a microgrilse. A very mackerelesque stature of a fish!
-DL
