So every year about this time there is something called the 'Salmon run' in Chico. It is when all of the salmon find their way back to the river that they were born in from the OCEAN! They come all this way to 'spawn' a.k.a. start a new generation of salmon :0) Matt and i heard about this and had to go see the giant salmon swimming around and thought we might do a little fishing while we were there ;0) The only problem was that we needed to use bait poles with 20lb test line to do that and considering the fact that we only fly-fish we didn't have two bait poles to use SO we went to good ol' Wal-Mart and bought another pole..then problem # 2 arose...we had NO IDEA what kind of bait to use to catch us these salmon SO we felt like idiots asking people what to get :0) You see..were used to GIVING fishing advice..not getting ;0) jk Anywho we ended up buying these lewers that looked like little fish..which was great but they were like 5 bucks each! SO we have everything we need (we think) and we head out to the river to try our luck..The guy told us to 'go on the other side of the river because the fisherman get pretty territorial with their spot and fights are a common occurrence there'...ME-'ummm alright?'LOL :0) Anyways we get there and there are a bunch of guys out there fishing. We find a spot and started fishing..mind you i haven't used a bait pole in years and theres a reason for that!..My line kept getting caught on stuff in the water and i wasn't too happy about losing the bait that i just paid 5 bucks each for!! We got to see some huge salmon jumping out of the water and swimming around. I guess the reason its so hard to catch the salmon is because they are so tired from swimming up-stream from the ocean and laying their eggs so they aren't eating very much..in fact most salmon die after spawning because they are that exhausted. SO we looked to see what our neighbors were using and were confused when we saw that they were just using HUGE hooks...no bait. They would cast the hook way far out there and yank the line as they reeled it in..they were just SNAGGING THE FISH!! Wheres the sport in that!? We were told that its actually illegal to fish like that and if caught doing so there are major fines involved. A few minutes later a guy hooked one on its SIDE and brought it in..Matt and i looked at eachother and decided to call it a day..On the way out we looked at the 30lb salmon that was caught..they look like monster fish with beady eyes and big TEETH!! kinda creepy looking but beautiful at the same time..Anyways The moral of the story is that fly fishing is the best kind of fishing !! :0)