4.5 pounds

4.5 pounds, that’s the weight of the salmon I caught this morning!

We left J.&M.’s place at 5h15. We were in Brador at the river at about 6h15, after a nice 45 minutes walk along a path. There were already two people fishing, a colleague from work and her boyfriend. Still, there was plenty of space for everyone, and most of all, plenty of salmon in the river!

J. brought me to a spot further down. While walking there I slid on a rock and fell in the water… Of course! One of my almost leg-long-length boots filled with water… I took them off, wrang the water out of my pants/socks and but the boots back on! J. gave me a mini-course on how to handle the cane and throw the fly onto the water. She did a demonstration. She then left to go help another lady she’d also invited along get settled.

A few minutes later… The salmon hooked on my line!! I called J. right away, she didn’t tell me the next step if I did get a catch!!! She gave me instructions… Keep the cane high. If the salmon jumps out of the water, lower the cane. Reel the fish in just enough to keep the line tight. If he wants to go away let some slack on the cord, let him go. I did that… 10 minutes later, I had a fish! The only part J. physically assisted me with was getting the fish out of the water… It seemed a bit difficult for a first time to handle both the cane and the fish!

My salmon measured about 22 inches and weighed 4.5 pounds. He had a scar on the top of his head, someone already tried to fish him, probably poachers from the size of the hole apparently. J.&M. will smoke it for me, I’ll have delicious smoked salmon, made from my own catch!

I’m happy… Beginners luck (or maybe natural talent?)! I only had a one day/one tag licence, so I couldn’t fish anymore. So I took off the wet clothes… I had brought my rain paints, so I wore those instead of my wet fleece pants. I also had like 5 pairs of socks, wool and cotton ones! So those came in handy. Thankfully I also had a good fly net over my head, because there were a LOT of little black flies! I watched others, took pics, looked at the ton of salmon in the river (we could see them so clearly) and just practiced throwing the fly out on the water with the cane.

Today’s Photoblog pic is a bit more abstract, “Whale pectoral fin in the water“… We could see it so clearly when the animal passed near/under the boat.