After a week of rain the Sol Duc was running pretty high but barely fishable. It was coming down but one more day would have made it a lot better. Not a lot of fish caught by the other boats on the river, 6 boats to my count, which is the most I've seen there in 3 trips. We did the middle and lower runs with the plan to hit a spot and if there were no fish in a reasonably short time, move on to the next. The big attraction was the Springer Chinook run. Hard to hook and harder to land. My 12 yr. old son Brett hooked into one after about 45 minutes on the river. After a 5 minute fight he had a nice 14lb buck in the net, his first Chinook of any kind. The fish had both hooks from Brett's flatfish firmly planted in his mouth. After that it was another 3 hours until I hooked something, might have been a small Springer or a Steelie. We pulled over to fight it and unfortunately pulled into a nice rock garden which the fish promptly used to pry himself loose. Oh well... Would have been nice to get two, and that would have been a banner day considering the conditions. As it was Brett's was the only Springer caught on the river Saturday according to the fish & game guy at the take out. Heard of a couple other boats with a some steelhead but no other Springers.

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