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Myself and a group of five friends (Ted, Andy, Don, Al, and Scott) stayed at the Douglaston Manor lodges during November 2006. Being a 15 year veteran of fishing for salmon and steelhead in the Salmon River, I was literally stunned at how nice the lodge was. It was so unique relative to the 30 or so other places I’d stayed through the years, that I will no longer stay anywhere else. I recommend it to everyone I talk to that is planning a trip to Pulaski.
And now for the fishing report… All I can say is wow!! Even with the high water (1800 c.f.s. + run-off) we never caught so many steelhead – It will be a day of fishing we will never forget... We went through 180 egg sacs with most of them lost on fish (Our guides were really happy with us!). There was more steelhead around than you could imagine. We landed 27 steelies (not including all of the skippers), a few rainbows and a small brown and lost more than we could count. To think, this was our first day on the river.
The fishing was a little slower on the second day but our group still managed to land 9 steelhead and a rainbow, in my opinion that was great for 4 hours of fishing. We were able to fight 9 more fish but with the big water and some of the areas we were fishing it was hard to land them (water was a little higher than yesterday). Seemed like there were less fish around (or so many had sore jaws from the day before) but most of the fish were bigger today with only 3 skippers landed.
The whole weekend was a competition between 2 teams (3 guys on each) and I am happy to report that my team did not have to buy the evening cocktails! It was a fishing experience we will never forget – lots of laughs and great fishing. What more could you ask for. Can’t wait till our next trip up in Nov 2007, DSR and Pulaski, here we come!
Cheers,
Kevin McCarthy, MA |