We took the drift boat out for a scenic and warm day on the Skagit River this weekend. The goal was to target bull trout, but we ended up just catching pink salmon.  The cool thing was that instead of catching humpies on just one technique, we successfully hooked them on multiple techniques and flies.

Skagit river pink salmon

I caught pinks with my single hand rod, “twitching” agitator steelhead type flies (heavily weighted eyes) on a floating line, swinging large intruder style flies on a heavy sink-tip with the double hand rod, and even hooked up while nymphing egg patterns under an indicator.

Pink and black intruder style fly

I have to say, hooking one on the swing with the double hand rod was probably the most fun for me. This seems unusual for pink salmon, since generally they tend to like a twitching up and down type movement of the fly.

Skagit pink salmon on the spey rod. The highlight of the day.

It was also fun watching the small 5-8 inch trout come up and nail my huge bright orange Thingamabobber strike indicator. Not sure what that was about, but the trout seemed more interested in the giant orange bubble floating on the surface than the stoneflies or egg patterns drifting along below.

Bent rod

This is why they call them humpies!

Rowing