Today was a pretty good day to be on the water in spite of the heavy rain and gloomy skies which I was betting on wouldn't last and they didn't. I had heard that the pinks had arrived in Howe Sound and I decided to head out and see how true the rumor was. I arrived at the Mamquam parking lot and was optimistic before I even got out of the truck as there were several people already heading home with fish shaped bulges in their plastic bags. So I geared up and headed across the bridge. The Mamquam was the lowest I have seen it even after this weeks rains. It was down to a single channel rather than the normal three at this time of year. There were fisherman at the railway bridge pool which is the upper most portion of the river which is open to fishing. As I followed the stream down to the confluence with the Squamish the number of fishers increased dramatically. The tell tale signs of fish heads and fish on stringers indicate that the morning had been productive for some. The most productive was right at the confluence and was pretty crowded.
While I wasn't thinking of spring salmon, the sight of a "slightly expired spring" opened up the possibility that today's menu could be more than just pinks and perhaps the odd bull trout.
After rubbing elbows with a few fisherman, I moved downstream to hopefully meet the fish as the tide backed up the river.
The most successful fisher of the day was a great blue heron that kept parking itself between us lacky fisherman to show us how it was done!
The fisher that stole the show for the day was a little merganser duckling. Him and his pals were feverishly chasing something in the shallows while mom dove nearby but when it was time to move on he hopped onto mom's back and hogged all the room. So while he got a free ride to new feeding grounds and catching a quick nap on the way, his brothers and sisters had to swim upstream the hard way!.....some fisherman know how to do it!
So, since the birds were doing better than most fisherman, I decided to head back and stopped in at Britannia Beach for a quick look. To my good fortune there were literally hundreds of pinks rolling about 100 feet off shore and there were fisherman casting out to them.
So now that I was officially off the clock, I headed down the bank and tossed a few. There were several runs that came in closer to shore and a few of us fly fishers were rewarded.
So, all in all another pretty tough summer day here on the west coast of British Columbia. As I sit and type this (about 2 hours after these last photos were taken) I can hear the sizzle of the barbecue and smell the fabulous spices on my fresh salmon.....gotta stop writing now....the Corona has been cooled to where it is just starting to form ice crystals and dinner is served!
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