A really fine day, even if my friend DIDN'T connect

A fine moment burned into my brain.

I was out on the SteMarg with a friend, Frank Levesque. Was the very first time Frank EVER went after Salmo Salar.

We were in "normal" prime time, June 24th in 2002. Unfortunately, this was a weird year. The morning we arrived, we found out there were a total of 6 salmon in the entire river (yes, we count 'em).

We set up in the #2 zone and practiced drowning flies for the morning. We sacked out on the gallery over the 24 for a while. It was warm and sunny, but I decided to move up to 25 to try for a while, ... just in case.

As I'm drifting some dries between the boulders on 25, I look back down to 24 ans SEE THESE MONSTERS porpoising along as they come up the river. FRESHLY ARRIVED SALMON.

I sprint back, kick Frank awake and set up to swing a "nymph" in front of three monster salmon. There were 2 WELL over 20lbs and one smaller one arround 16 lbs.

On the second cast, BANG, .. I connect. Frank yells, "Hey, you got the small one"

Not a refusal.

Frank says,"I'll go get the net!!"

I reply, "F**k the net, those other two want some too, start casting"!!!

I had my hands full as I'm on lite tippets. After I land mine, I move up onto the gallery to watch Frank casting to two MONSTERS. These guys were AT LEAST 6-10 inches longer than the one I pulled out.



At that same moment, visiters arrive to watch. they are none other than:
Boris, another Guide and his Girlfriend
Romain T (president of the River Association) and his wife and
two more of their friends.

So this refusal had a whole peanut gallery of witnesses.

Frank is down in the river, so he can't HEAR us. We're up on the observatory, so we can see RIGHT DOWN into the pool and EVERY movement from the 2 salmon.

Frank is new to salmon behavious so he can't really control his excitment, nor the speed of the swing.

He lays out a nice streamer, ... the BIGGEST SALMON I'VE SEEN IN YEARS, slides out of shelter and starts following the slowly swinging Blue Charm. Just as it approaches "pouncing" range, it's mouth GAPES open like Moby Dick, ... a swish of the tail and it accelerates TOWARDS the fly. The first refusal at the VERY last moment was sooo strong, the arcing body of the salmon pushed a water swirl into the river bed that disturbed peanut sized gravel.

Almost a dozen times more, over and over again, we watched as Frank furiously changed flies and swings. Each and EVERY time one of the two salmon would follow, gape, lunge and refuse.

Poor Frank was in the water and could only guess at what was seen when he'd hear "Whooooa" and see tha "Peanut Gallery" arms flailing in the air, laughing and cheering (half for Frank, half for the salmon).

After 20 minutes of this, the salmon settled down and hunkered down in a draw.

We saw these same two salmon ALL season long in the upper reaches. No one ever caught either of the two.

Frank didn't connect, but the experience gave him the bug

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Christopher Chin
Jonquiere Quebec
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