Springers

There is a reason why we all want to catch spring fish – they fight beyond belief and everyone is a picture to look at.  Last night Paul P hooked a fish at midnight and it weighed exactly 7lbs.  Not exactly huge but as it emptied his reel of backing and showed no signs of tiring, we were not to know it was that size.  We managed to net it a full 150 yards from where he had hooked it and the assembled crowd could only watch in amazement as to how hard he had to fight to get it in.

Graham and Paul with 7lbs of silver fury

That was one of 29 we landed yesterday here at Lower with Tony S landing 5 and the aforementioned Paul landing 6.  The encouraging aspect was that we landed fish in all of the beats and there is a real sense of the river filling up with fresh run salmon.

Middle had another amazing day and finished on 141 to the 12 rods.  Martin L had 12 of those with 2 good ones well into the teens whilst Tim I had a day to dream about, he landed 21 bright silver spring salmon to his rod with 6 fish over 10lbs. 

Jo A on Heli

The water temperature is now around 7c and all of the rods reported seeing many more fish than before as they start to show themselves in the warmer water.

Kitza is dropping quickly but it is still very difficult there – my suspicion is that changeover day will herald the real change as it so often does.  Ken B persisted hard and landed 2 fish but it is not the Kitza river that we know and love at the moment. 

Paul P with one of his 6 for the day

Overnight the river has dropped 5 inches and is getting back to that tea like clarity that we would look for.  All of the snow has pretty much gone and whilst there is still plenty of water lying in the catchment area, the tundra is now doing its job of acting like a giant sponge and any water now being released is much cleaner which bodes well for the rest of the season.

Charlie White