Have I mentioned that I love river fishing???

Every other year there is a very large run of Pink salmon in Puget Sound who are headed for area rivers including the Puyallup/Carbon and Green. So in a "Pink" year as soon as fishing in the Sound slows down Jeramy and I head out to the Puyallup and Carbon rivers. And I have to say that it is hard to beat the excitement of river fishing in a "Pink" year. First of all, I simply like fishing in rivers because you're literally up to waist deep in the river. There is just something about the scenery, the sounds, and the connection with the water that allows me to tune out everything else around me. Second, I like that I get to be in control of my own fishing destiny. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but when we fish on the boat I'm usually the one driving. So that means I'm completely reliant on Jeramy to set up the gear and even grab the poll and start reeling before it gets handed off to me. It's sort of the difference between a team and individual sport, I guess. Finally, there are just so many of these salmon its crazy. When you are standing in the river you can actually feel the fish bump into your legs at times. Often times people can have a fish on every few casts and reel dozens of them in during the day. You fish with pretty light weight polls and the salmon are pretty determined not to be caught, so the fight is really exciting.

Anyhow, Jeramy and I met up with some friends out at the Puyallup yesterday for the Labor Day holiday. Since it had been a couple of years it took me a little while to get back in the swing of things. This is actually the first time when we've fished the river with other friends, and it was definitely great to have them around because that offloaded some of the "Jennifer-burden" from Jeramy. Mike and Randy showed me how to cast and reel better and also how to tie on gear. These are all things my husband has tried to teach me, but he has found me to be obstinant to his instruction. I felt a bit bad for distracting them with my ineptitude, but they didn't seem to mind and even tried to convince me to call in sick in order to go out again today. I have to say it was pretty tempting...

After six hours of keeping some fish and throwing back several, we had our limit of 6 fish each (12 total) and were exhausted. A lot of people just catch and release, because Pink salmon, especially those in the river and close to spawning, are not particularly good eating. But they smoke up okay, and we're happy to stock up on fish for smoking since all that Sockeye was destroyed in the refrigerator debacle while we were in Yellowstone.