If I’m rating this day for myself fishing success-wise it’s a one. Fortunately I had Gringo Pescador along to save the day and bump it to a three. Of course, for him it would have been a five.

The water level was a bit high today but it had come down in 24 hrs from 5,000 cfs to around 3,200. Lower part of the river was colored up and a bit fast, but past the fork the water was in much better shape. We fished out of my little jet boat. The Satsop is fun to dart around with this boat, but a bigger jet boat would be advised to stay below the east/west fork.

We fished our first hole after a guide boat left, and started to see rising fish here and there – and Gringo nailed a beautiful B run chrome bright coho on a twitching jig. I was twitching as well but also throwing chartreuse spinner and plugs, but no love for me from the fish. After fishing this hole for about an hour and a half and no further action we ran up river about a mile and spent a half hour trolling a prime fish lane, but no fish came out to play.

Our final destination was a well-known piece of frog water off the east fork. As noted earlier, running the river this far up is a bit trickier – it has some sharp S turns and shallow spots with a fair amount of wood to be on the lookout for. We arrived safely and spent the rest of the day, about 4 hours, twitching and casting till our elbows got sore. Mark once again had the hot hand, catching two more chrome bright B runs and losing one. Me, I got one tired, moldy chum. We saw the bankies catch a half dozen fish while we were there, so while it wasn’t on fire there was action to be had. We called it a day at 3pm as the rains started to fall heavier. Back at the launch it was "fun" powering the boat on to my trailer. Be aware the launch has no current deflection, it can be a challenge.

Now if I can just manage one more trip for this year!