Took a vacation day Friday and hit the Cowlitz river in pursuit of chrome. Had a great time! There were a lot of fishermen out for a weekday. Caught some nice fish, but had to work for them and put in some time. Started off floating eggs at Barrier dam. During the first hour I caught a feisty chrome hen and lost two other fish after brief battles. Continued to float eggs for a couple hours until I ran out of my home cure. Had another handful of bobber downs, but missed the fish. Switched to bottom bouncing corkies. Caught a large slightly blushed hen on my first cast. She put up a great fight! Caught a second smaller blushed hen a few minutes later. Hooked up with a huge colored up King about ten minutes later. It jumped twice and popped my leader as I tried to subdue the beast. Wasn't planning to keep that one anyway, but it would have been fun to get it in and take a closer look at it. Guessing it was about 35 lbs. Took a short break for lunch then brought out the backup store bought eggs and went back to float fishing. Hooked up twice and lost both fish after brief battles. After another hour or so decided to switch back to bouncing corkies. Fishing picked up in the evening about an hour before sundown. Pretty sure some fresh fish pushed up into the hole because the bite got crazy. There were multiple hookup and flying fish everywhere. Lots of chrome came to the bank in a short time. I lost four fish in rapid succession. All of them popped my leaders. One took me down the rapids and got stuck on a log. The other three broke me off out in the hole. Truth is there were so many lines in the water and people around at that point I was horsing them a little too hard trying to get them to the bank without getting tangled with anyone else. All in all it was an amazing day. I went 3/12, but had a blast doing it!

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