Humpy…or Pink? (O. gorbuscha)
The first salmon that I ever caught was a pink, on a Lake Superior tributary many years ago. I strongly remember that brilliant, fish-filled morning, and I also remember the first day that I caught an Alaskan pink half a decade later. It was on the famed Kanektok, a river that is better known for silvers and big ‘bows.
Perhaps the biggest pink that I have ever caught came from Russia’s Kola Peninsula, where it was not a welcome guest. The fish took a swung fly in the sea-pool of the Sidorovka and dogged hard, making me wonder if I had hooked an Atlantic salmon that had a personal aversion to jumping. When the fish finally surfaced, its hooked jaw and humped back was an immediate give-away
A few days later, a couple of kilometers up-river, I would blow the set on the largest Atlantic salmon that I have ever had to the fly, but that’s another story…
