Since then I've read a lot and learned a lot. Fishing heavy pods stacked up at barriers isn't a productive method so I thought it would be fun to try my luck again, this time with a 3 weight. My parents-in-law live no more than a couple of minutes north of Devils Track so I was on the water very early. The subtle orange hues of first light gleamed across a relatively still Lake Superior as I hiked along the shoreline to the mouth. Seagulls were present just out from the mouth and a batch of ducks took to the sky just as I noticed a family of three otters scurrying about in the shallows near the mouth. The signs were good. I started with a green caddis and soon saw a fish porpoise. Well, there must be fish in. I moved all the way to the highway 61 bridge with only a single hit. By this time there was enough light I could see quite a number of fish in the pool, but nowhere near as many as I've seen in years past.
After trying a number of flies with no luck I switched to a #16 prince nymph. It struck pay-dirt almost immediately, my first humpie on the new rod. The fish was clean and quite fresh, fought very well on the light rod and made me a happy camper. I was doing very well fishing the tailout of that pool hooking fish every few minutes or so. After a half hour or so a young guy came walking along the bridge, spied me hooked into a fish then left. Hmmm, unusual behavior in this part of the world. Normally he'd be fishing so close I'd smell his after shave. Ten or so minutes afterwards the same guy came down, armed with his 7 weight and quietly slipped past me to fish downstream.
First Fish of the TripAfter some time he hadn't had any luck while I was still regularly hooking up. One thing I did notice though was that when I'd lost the white biot wings from my fly there was no more hits, and other flies weren't doing half as well. I'm not normally the guy that dials things in that well but this time I was doing well. Anyway, after a while the young guy came up and mentioned he'd just moved to Duluth to go to Med school and was trying out the new rivers. I'd done quite well already and offered him my hole and suggested he try a prince nymph. He politely refused mine and opted to use his own.
I moved downstream to the first pool upstream from the shallow mouth of the river and noticed the strangest thing. With the sun getting higher hits were becoming sporadic with a heap of activity for ten minutes or so and then it would get quite for a half hour or so. Finally I put it together, as you could visibly see the fresh pods of fish coming in from the lake and filling the pool. Where there had been very few fish earlier in the morning there was now hundreds of fish. I had one more visit from my fishing partner that resulted in me providing one of my princes. Apparently his had very small white wings and I'd already established the importance of them to the fish on this day. Soon after he caught his first humpy and I landed it for him. He was hooked fair as was fitting for somebodies first fish. He went on to get several more that morning and even took a picture of me holding up one of the last fish I caught for the session.
My Fishing Partner's First Pink SalmonThings slowed considerably about lunch time and I came back to fish again that evening. I managed a few more as it got darker (and the otters and ducks returned) but fair hookups were less frequent. The following morning the river was packed with pink salmon but they were very difficult to get fair. I tried some other rivers without luck (the run always seems to be earlier on the devils track) but did land a steelhead smolt from the Cascade, which is great news for steelhead populations. I may never strike it lucky enough to have fresh fish pushing into a river again, but for a few hours pink salmon provided me a heap of fun on a 3 weight fishing with conventional trout flies.
A Typical Male Pink Salmon
Mouth of Devils Track River 
Highway 61 Bridge
