I'm new to salmon fishing the rivers and took my 17-year-old daughter with me up to the Thomas Eddy area of the Snohomish. This was my first time there, and we made a wrong turn driving there, but was a simple correction. We pulled into a fairly crowded parking lot, so I thought the river might be a zoo, but in fact, it was very manageable. Fish were jumping everywhere.

We started drifting corkies with yarn, I used chartreuse, and my daughter pink. My daughter got a pretty good hit and the fish was on the line for maybe 5 seconds, might have been a late humpy. I didn't see it really well. After a 1/2 hour or so of nothing, we went with some spoons and spinners with no luck. I used a chartreuse spinner, and my daughter a silver and orange castmaster.

We switch back to drifting and I put on a silver and brass Dick Nite and somehow snagged a zombie pink. Kinda gross getting the hook out of it. A couple of minutes later my daughter had a great hit and landed a 4 pound coho. Very exciting as this was the first fish she had caught...ever.

In actuality, the day was probably a 2 or 3 at best since we only saw another fish landed (on plastic eggs). Since it was my daughter's first catch, I rated it a 5, as it was a landmark day. I forgot a bag and someone even gave me one in the parking lot. Great area , nice people, good karma.

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