COHO LITE

My Way Or The Highway

The next day Kustich and I motored out to a place called the Open Bight, located at the junction of Rivers Inlet and Fitz Hugh Sound. The locals called this spot "The Highway," not only because it's wide, long and more or less featureless, but because it functions as an autobahn for traveling salmon. We hadn't putt-putted on the highway long before realizing that the pods of salmon were way too sporadic and widely dispersed for even a prayer of intercepting with a fly.

I've got to admit right at the outset that I'm not a big fan of bait-fishing. I'm not squeamish or anything. If necessary, I won't hesitate to run a hook through the innards of whatever hapless critter it takes to get the fish interested. But all in all, bait-fishing is unpretty. I like plumage; I'm a shameless devotee of hooks disguised in feathers and frippery. On the other hand, there's something appealingly Old West about bait-fishing. It's more fatalistic. You eat what you hunt, stalk and kill.

Furthermore, the decision to forsake the fly and embrace bait was aided and abetted by Legacy's resolve to lighten up. Actually, compared to the Joe Palooka gear favored by other outfitters, from its very first season Legacy had used and advocated what would be considered light tackle. now they were on the verge of ethereal. Before leaving the dock that morning. Phil Dawson, one of the principals at Legacy Lodge, equipped our boat with two 10-foot bait rods, custom built on graphite fly-rod blanks by Redl Sports in Burnaby, B.C. Instead of standard mooching reels, the rods were armed with Islander MR2 fly reels. And in lieu of the usual 6- and 8-ounce ball sinkers, we were supplied 2- and 4-ounce sinkers. Barely containing a grin, Dawson explained: "If you've got to mooch, here's some gear you fly guys might relate to...Incidentally, we've hooked salmon out there just dragging a herring, with no weight, behind the boat."

Peppermint Herring Guts Barfuccino

No sooner had we switched from flies to bait than we started catching fish. Given the circumstances, who could be blamed for sliding into the den of bait-slimed iniquity? (Confession: it wasn't that far of a slide.) And before long Kustich and I became mighty relaxed, if not blithe, about our conversion to the gospel of mooching, joking that herring guts were getting all over everything, including our fancy GoreTex pants, pristine fly rods and even the coffee thermos. Though flavored coffee drinks are all the rage, herring guts espresso probably won't generate much demand.

Curiously enough, our boat consistently hooked coho while most others did not. Perhaps it was pure dumb luck—maybe we bumbled and stumbled into the paths of voracious salmon. But I doubt it, because that's the way it went for the duration of our stay. The only theory I could come up with is simply this: going ultra light gave us an advantage. There were two differences, albeit somewhat subtle, between the way Kustich and I fished and the way the other boats fished. 1) By using less weight, 2-ounce sinkers, we mooched at shallower depths than was customary in Rivers Inlet. And for some reason, probably corresponding to the depth of the forage fish, that's where the coho were during this time frame. 2) Partly owing to the lightness of our tackle—you don't ripp-ass across the saltchuck using a wispy rod—we fished slower, often just wind-drifting. And that's the presentation the coho happened to be looking for.

Shlow and shallow? So why didn't flies work? Like I said before, primarily because the pods of salmon were too few and far apart. But also because of the flies themselves. Plug-cut herring not only present a generous silhouette, they also roll and twirl, flutter and flash as they're pulled through the brine. No fly pattern yet devised is capable of producing such a rollicking action. I'm convinced that if someone designed a righteously "boisterous" fly patter, that truly mimicked wounded herring, fly-anglers would more often find themselves seriously in the game.

In the meantime, I know two fly guys—uber-light mooching rods firmly in hand—willing wait for the bite with, well, baited breath.

Cohoperation

Even when the locals characterize the salmon fishing as "off" in Rivers Inlet, it's still ten times faster than the average day in the lower 48. But what I find most appealing about Legacy Lodge (877) 347-4534, www.legacylodge.com, besides the obvious—crackerjack service and amenities, genuine 100-watt cheerfullness and old-fashioned zeal—is its commitment, nay, devotion, to free-spirited, self-guided angling. Sure, the staff provides the requisite coaching and hand-holding; after all, some guests arrive not knowing a herring from a hambone. But once all the green pilots have been briefed, you're at liberty to wing one of the custom-built Scout 175 sportboats, pushed by a Yamaha 60 h.p., into the wild blue ocean yonder.

The fact is, despite the temptation to roam like a drunken alley cat, you don't have to go far to find salmon in Rivers Inlet. That's one of its main selling points. Once out there, you call your own shots, not excluding such delusional madness as fly-fishing (though the lodge does everything in its power to see that every client stacks up salmon). Mooching, of course, is de rigueur—the slam-dunk method for waylaying coho and chinook. And now that Legacy has adopted the lightest, most sensitive (some would say extreme) mooching rods on the market as an option, every salmon hooked makes a truly lasting impression.