King of the River

A friend kindly delivered a large order of Fiish stuff from the Pike Shop stand yesterday at the Lurefair but at the end of the day I wandered over to check out some of the new colours they had recently got in stock. Having set my stall out to catch a legitimate salmon it was the orange and yellow ones that caught my eye - many salmon fly patterns are yellow and orange and the salmon guys who use plugs seem to favour orange as well.
Yesterday involve a 400 mile round trip and working on my second hand stall in between. A lazy start this morning after an exhausting day yesterday saw me at the river about 10am.
The river was up a bit and just lightly coloured - I wondered if the lift yesterday might have a fish or two on the move. The fast water was all really tanking through so decided to concentate on a wider section that has an even depth of 2-3' usually and figured it may be 4' ish today. This area of the river is littered with large boulders which are perfect for running salmon to take a breather behind.
I'd worked a few boils (often well downstream of the obstruction causing them) without any sign but after an hour or so of methodically working upstream and just as the 90mm Black Minnow swung in behind a boulder I had a crunching hit!
After a brutal struggle I managed to slide the fish into the waiting net which was by now being held by a shaking hand!
A beautiful 8lb 3oz king of the river and a new PB

This was the first time I've had to use my new Mcleans gye net with a buit in weighing system in the handle - a fantastic bit of kit which I can get off my back and assemble one handed and quickly - a feature I was very glad of today!