Want to catch a truly enormous silver salmon? For Matt Harris, the only place to go is Patagonia.
MOST SALMON ANGLERS dream of catching a truly vast salmon. Who hasn’t spent a few minutes imagining that moment when your fly is snatched away by a true leviathan? A monster. A fish to show your grandchildren.
That dream is one that few will realise. The huge Atlantic salmon of yesteryear are all but a memory in most of our home rivers, and the true titans – fish of 40lb and more – are now extremely rare anywhere apart from Norway’s legendary Alta.
Yet there is a place.
A place where big, chrome-silver fish of 30lb barely raise an eyebrow. A place where fish of 40lb, 50lb, even 60lb are eminently catchable on fly.
Before you get too excited, there is one big caveat. The fish I’m talking about are not Atlantic salmon, but Oncorhynchus tshawytscha – the Chinook or king salmon.
Be clear. Chinook are not Atlantic salmon. Whereas Atlantic salmon possess a rare bewitching beauty, and have a playful capricious quality that keeps us coming back time and again, Chinook are different. They are big ugly brutes that bulldoze up the river with all the grace of an underwater rhinoceros.
Chinook don’t take a Bomber fly or a riffle hitch.
If you want to catch a Chinook, you can forget your long leader and your full floating line. Unless the water is very, very low, you are going to have to “hoik”some brutally heavy tungsten sink-tips across the river, with a big flashy fly that snaps one of these big brutes out of their torpor.
Make no mistake. Catching kings with a fly is hard graft. Very hard graft. A long attritional war that makes early spring fishing on the Tay look like child’s play.
Chinook fishing is not pretty. For the most part it’s crude and ugly and lacks all the aesthetic elegance of Atlantic salmon fishing.
Denne historien er fra December 2017-utgaven av Trout & Salmon.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra December 2017-utgaven av Trout & Salmon.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Mr Goldhead And The Grayling
Lawrence Catlow fishes the rapidly recovering River Irfon in Powys.
Moody Beasts
Stan Headley searches for the elusive sea-trout of Loch Ailsh in the northwest Highlands.
Alone On The River
Cliff Hatton encounters a mighty Wye salmon.
Hop To It
Richard Donkin has a no-nonsense approach to tackle and amphibians.
River Blackwater
THE BLACKWATER rises in the boglands of County Kerry, and although the peaty tinge it carries gives rise to its name it also flows through limestone and that helps it to support a diverse range of fly-life which provides plenty of sustenance for salmon parr and trout. The river is one of Ireland’s most productive salmon fisheries, along with the River Moy.
Hampshire Avon
THERE CAN be few places in fishing more famous than the Royalty Fishery on the Hampshire Avon, even Mr Crabtree has fished its illustrious waters. Two seasons ago an enormous salmon of 40lb was caught in the spring at the Royalty and big salmon are regularly caught in the early months of the season.
A Strange Kind Of Magic
Charles van straubenzee introduces a salmon fly that combines the most unlikely colours and materials to deadly effect.
A Deep-Water Experiment
Stan Headley hatches a plan to catch three species of fish in one day at Loch Calder in Caithness.
Rutland's Old Warriors
James Beeson enjoys supercharged surface sport with Rutland Water’s fry-feeders.
Plucked From The Jaws
Looking for affordable back-end sport? Andrew Flitcroft recommends the challenging Chollerton beat on the North Tyne.
