Larry L wrote:

..... and the fish are right next to shore anyway


I (as usual) agree with most of what Larry said.
But not necessarily this part. Lower down the river
the fish get driven off the banks by a daily parade of driftboats.
Up in the Slide Inn area, when you can find it, I like fan-shaped
riffley runs that drain fast water into deeper, bluer water.

And the big fish are never on the bank anymore. Maybe they would be
if there weren't so many fishermen trudging along and flailing
away. But there they (the fishermen) are, and there they (the fish)
are not.

The last time I went to the 3 dollar bridge at salmon fly time
there must have been 100 fishermen there. I waded out into
kamakaze-style fast water (almost went down getting there) and
then caught my breath in the eddy behind a huge, deep mid-river rock,
maybe a quarter mile up from the bridge. I caught two 17-18"
fish there, plus 2-3 smaller ones and missed a few honkers too.
I had one really big fish on that caught some cat calls from the
peanut gallery.

And all that during a period when I didn't see anybody else touch
anything. Not because I'm such a great fisherman, but more because
I was fishing deep fast water, in the middle of the river,
that nobody else had touched all day.

I do that too from the boat, further down the river. I ignore the
banks and work the deep blue rolling runs smack in the middle
of the river. That's were the big ones are.