Salmon Fishing on the Snohomish

   Yesterday, August 17, was the second day that the Snohomish River had been open for salmon fishing.  I wasn't able to go fishing on the opening day because I had to work at the bee store.  Since I own the bee store calling in sick wasn't an option. Fortunately, I have an employee so Quentin manned the store while I got to go fishing.

   The Snohomish river has very strong run of pink salmon, also called humpies, in odd years.  For some strange reason the river has a lighter run of pinks in even years.  About two million pinks run up the river in an odd numbered year while we have a mere 700,000 fish in an even numbered year. I don't know how long it has been that way.  You would think that over time the two runs would even out.  In an odd year the daily catch limit for pinks is four fish. In an even year, if you are allowed to fish for the pink salmon, the daily catch limit is usually just one fish. As you can imagine the fishing pressure is much less in the even years while the river is filled with fisherman in the odd years.  These are all native fish as there is no hatchery for pink salmon.

    I'm very fortunate in that I have several good friends who love to fish and have a boat. I met both of these friends through the bee store so they are both bee buddies as well as fishing buddies. Prior to my retirement and purchase of the Beez Neez Apiary Supply I was usually one of the poor souls fishing on the bank.  I caught some fish, but I never did as well as I did fishing from a boat.  So yesterday I spent the entire day on the Snohomish River fishing for salmon with my bee buddy Steve and new friend named John. Steve is the guy driving the boat while John is the guy holding up the six pound male pink salmon.  The female pink salmon on the lawn is the one salmon I caught. It is relatively early in the run so there aren't as many fish as there will be in another week.  John caught his limit while Steve and I each caught just one fish.  Both of us had several other fish on that we failed to land.  It was still a wonderful day on the river with good company.