East Outlet Weekend Video:Hi-Speed Only

The only thing better than fishing the East Outlet For Salmon is fishing the East Outlet For Salmon with a long time fishing buddy. SLURP! The caddis fly was gone and the fish was in the air. Silver as silver could be, the fish must have just come into the river. He jumped through the pool, I landed him and the sun was down. “Where the #@#$# is Nick? He should have been here by now.” After the high wears off from catching my first good sized fish of the weekend, I find myself on the banks of the east outlet. It’s dark, the fire is almost out so I pull the sleeping bag over my head and sleep. Saturday morning 5am, I cruise into Greenville and grab 3 coffees, throw on my waders and I am in the wader by 5:40am. No sign of Nick. I am so pissed. I can’t believe he is not gonna show. Fishing alone stinks. Sometimes its good but I was psyched to fish the East Outlet with Nick this weekend. We have been fishing buds for years now and this was gonna be a big trip for us and now he is not showing up. So, I forget about him and continued to stare at my Caddis fly drifting through the pool. “Yo! Jer!” I look downriver and there he is. We gear up and we are on the water in no time. We hook into a bunch of smaller Brookies and Salmon, then Nick has a beauty on. His rod is doubled over and a smile from ear to ear. Then – Gone. Bad knot. It was heartbreaking, but we move on and forget about it. We go grab lunch and after lunch Nick gets first casts into the nicely rested pool. I am giving him some stupid advice, telling him not to do what he is doing and WHAM! Gorgeous Salmon graps his fly and leaps outta the water. Nick was fishing upstream in quick water and he just couldn’t gather the line quick enough. The Salmon spit the hook. Nick’s catching tough breaks all over the place. Nick got one nice brookie then we split up and fished different runs. The sun is setting and Nick has a huge fish on. Weird though, it ain’t jumping. It’s just hunkering down on the bottom. Must be a huge Brookie! It’s the fish of a lifetime! Nick is pumped up, playing the fish with grace; being careful not to snap him off. “What the #$^%$!” Nick is disgusted. “Its’ a %^%* Sucker!” I am holding back the laughter. We hit the Beach Pool 10 minutes before dark. I picked up a decent Salmon on a caddis. Sunday Morning produced several small fish and a few nice hits. Nick had a huge Salmon hit a Brown Wooly on the dead drift. Jumped right outta the water landed and snapped him off. Nick dialed into the Salmon, that’s for sure, but he was just getting bad breaks after the fish were on. These were big fish in fast water, that’s the way it goes. Kinda like steelheading on the Salmon River – Hooking em is one thing – landing them is another. Nick went home at noonish and I said I was going home too, but I didn’t. I just had to try the Tressle Pool. Caddis on top, drifting through the pool. Wham fish on, fish on, fish on. The caddis were coming off in the sunlit water and I got a bunch of fish. Nothing real big, but still fun. What a great weekend. We laughed all weekend, caught a bunch of fish, lost a bunch of fish, lost a bunch of flies, lost a bunch of sleep…Can’t wait to do it again.