A friend from work and I decided to try the fishing derby this Saturday for Area 11. We arrived at Redondo launch around 3:30am, but had to wait for the Launch parking area to open before we could launch. After launching, we decided to cruise around marking fish till daylight. Soon after the sky was bright enough to see our poles, we started trolling south along the shore along with 30-50 other boats. Rig of choice was a Green E-chip flasher, 4' of leader, then silver/green coyote. We hooked into 4 undersized Chinook and one 26" Coho. We argued over the rules, as the Coho was wild (fin still attached), so to play it safe, it was set free. Later we asked an official and they said "only wild Chinook need to be released, all other salmon are fare game". So after catching these, we heard that they were catching huge ones near the SlagPile, so we cruised down there and only caught one undersized Chinook. So, having no fish to turn in for the derby, we headed home around 1pm.

-Lou

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