Thursday, September 13, 2007

Time to spawn

Although there was thousands of salmon spawning in the stream so shallow
my boots never went under, a still, serene part of the creek seems
to "crawl" with trout that have the same idea. Keep your eyes on the
rocky creek bottom. I've never seen so many trout in one 50 foot
section of shallow stream. The "used" salmon odor permeates the
forest - probably smelling of success to any trout angler.



We did try to fish a couple out - to see if it was dollys or 'bows (that seem to
spawn later through the winter-to spring). Only saw a couple of dollys that
proved difficult to pull from under so many humpys. They were dollys -
probably spawning. It IS that time of year.
We drove down to Quartz Creek and fished for over an hour - to only pull
out 1 dolly that seemed to have a malformed lower jaw. Maybe he was
mentally challenged, as well, because none of his buddies were biting.


We definitely had a good time.

8 opinionated prattle:

Heidi said...

Wow that video would be so much better if we had a polarized lens cover.

Stan Harrington said...

Now that was a very subtle hint if I ever heard one? Nice humps! I have often wonmdering that the spawning time is on a Pink, they sure seem to die off fast after coming into the rivers. Nothing better than a good spawned out pink grilled on a slab of green spruce.

Stan Harrington said...

Drift on over to Prattler site to see an example of one of the finest sport fish in North America or the world for that matter.

Heidi said...

Dad you notice the black shadows moving around the Hummpy's? It's hard to tell by that video, but there is a black cloud of trout, 100's of them. It was spooky.

Stan Harrington said...

I took a second look aftr Heidi's comments. What creek was this, it looks like one of the feeder creeks into Quartz Creek. The swarm of fish that you see are most likely Dollies, I have seen them on the sonar site at the Anchor River weir coming through the camera lens in "clouds" or schools like that. Heath and I also found a slough on the Kenai River whrer the Rainbow Trout were very thick and feeding on dead salmon, but they were more independent and did not ball up like the Dollies. To bad you did not have a Polarized lens.

Heidi said...

Earlier when I talked to you on the phone, did I tell you Quartz creek? or Stoney? After I got off the phone with you I thought "Did I tell him Quartz creek?" We were at Stoney Creek, 6 miles north of Seward.

Notice how they spelled Stoney, the stoners!

john r mclay said...

So, if you had even so much as READ my short post you would've been tipped off to the fact that these fishes were, indeed, dollies. Also, to keep your eyes on the bottom of the stream. Granted, Youtube does not have the clarity the original file has on media player. I still think you caught that steelhead north of here......and have a hard time admitting it.

john r mclay said...

Heck, there's even links leading to the facts of dolly/rainbow matter. And I'm not talkin' Dorothy here.

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