Had a fantastic trip in that spot of sunny weather on Thursday, April 17. Got up late that morning and debated whether to go fishing. By 9am the neighborhood noise of leaf blowers, skillsaws, and hammering convinced me to go. Half of fishing is just getting away from it all, seeking the tranquility of the water...you know the feeling.
It was my first fishing trip this year. Spent a couple hours Tuesday prepping my Nucanoe (canoe-kayak hybrid), the trailer, and the 2.5 hp Suzuki outboard in anticipation of the good weather.
Got to the Willamette River at 11:15 am, sun was up and bright, and there was a 7 mph wind. Launched the kayak and the motor started real easy. So I cruised to the top of the run where there is a 1 ½ mile stretch of river that I know really well. Half a dozen boats trolled the area, but they cleared out by noon.
I ran two rods off either side of the yak, one with a chartreuse spinner, the other with a spinfish loaded with tuna. Water temp of 54 F, perfect for hardware. As for the spinfish, that lure is new to me. The wind blew right into me as I trolled with the current at 11:30 am. Sonar read about 25 ft of water, and 6 oz lead cannonballs got the lures down near the bottom. Wind blowing upstream into me slowed my troll, and the spinfish wasn't turning properly (realized later that my line was twisted around its body when I closed the two halves after loading it with tuna). But at the moment, I thought the spinfish wouldn't spin because of the wind and slower trolling speed. The high-vis yellow line of both rods also ran almost straight down under my yak, maybe only a 15 degree angle between the line and the water, so after the first run I switched to 4 oz lead to keep the lures behind the yak at least 20 feet and give the salmon some breathing room if they decided to inspect the lures. A big advantage of fishing out of a kayak is the way you can micromanage your gear and know exactly where your lures are on the bottom because you are literally eye-level with the water and your rods and tackle are in arms reach and your sonar with water-depth and structure information is right in your face all the time.
Anyway, I switched out the fouled spinfish lure on the second run. Since I already had a chartreuse spinner on one rod, I went with a pink Thoman Thumper spinner. Experimenting with the new spinfish would have to wait for now.
I had just started at the top of the run for this second pass, and the 4 oz lead perfectly kept both spinners right on the bottom with that nice 45 degree line angle in the water. It was 12:18 pm, and I was just starting to get into the groove of fishing for the day when the rod with the pink spinner flexed hard. I was surprised because I was just barely into the run and I had just switched to the pink spinner only a minute or two before the fish hit. There is always that moment when you think you might be hung on the bottom, but the rod bowed hard, the drag squealed and line peeled off in a couple of decent rips, followed by a few shorter rips. The rod bowed and relaxed a few times, and the fish managed to strip about 15 feet of line total. After reeling in the other rod, I picked the hot rod up and felt the weight of the fish. I knew it wasn't going to be a smaller, cookie-cutter 8 lb. fish right away, and was pleased to feel its strength. My drag is set pretty tight on my reels (I believe a tight drag drives the hooks in better when trolling, I literally never set the hook myself), so it takes a decent-size fish to peel off 15 feet or more of line.
Once I reeled in the other rod, I played the fish under motor power continuing to troll downstream for a bit while moving the yak into deeper water away from the shore to keep it from diving and wrapping itself up into any pilings or other structure along the shoreline. In the middle of the river, I turned the yak upstream and continued to pull the fish with the motor to get it lined up for the fight. It made several good runs downstream and pulled off ten feet of line or so each time. The king surfaced a couple of times and did a few of those “shooting on top of the water skimming moves” directly away from me that pulled my rod almost in a straight line toward it and allowed more line to peel off the reel. There were some good headshakes when it did that, and I could see the pink lure and its red/white blade in the side of the fish's mouth, me all the time praying she wouldn't spit the treble hook. I quickly got my rod back up into a nice arch to control the fish and stop the line peeling off so much. I killed the motor and started playing the fish more, trying to get it to tire out before bringing it in close. Each time I brought the fish within about 12 feet of the yak, I felt its strength and stripped some more line off by hand to let it tire out a bit more before bringing it in again each time. I can't stand bringing in a hot fish right next to the kayak because that's a great way to lose fish. But it started to tire out and listed a little to one side as I brought it alongside the yak for the first time and realized it was a nice fish. I didn't see that nasty high fin of a wild fish, so I started prepping the net. Netting a king salmon in a yak by yourself is a tricky dance, by the way. Half the battle is just trying to keep the net from getting tangled in your sonar, little cleats on the yak, or other gear that is so very close.
Anyway, the fish lost steam after about an 8 minute fight, so it was now or never with the net. She was literally hovering 6 feet below the water surface and not moving, so I lifted her up and she gently swam along like a dog on a leash. She was so calm that I went ahead and put the net in the water so she could see it (which I don't like to do normally but it sure makes for easier netting when by yourself), then I did one big lift and dragged her over into the ring head first and she didn't seem stressed at all, until I lifted the net up and she realized she was trapped and went nuts.
Once I hauled her into the yak, I could see how well she was hooked with one of the treble barbs popped completely through her lower jaw and a second barb buried in the jaw for good measure. I was never in any danger of her spitting the hooks as I had thought earlier.
It was 12:30 pm now, and that seemed like a great way to end the day with less than an hour of my gear in the water, so I decided not to try for a second fish. It always feels great to take one down on the first trip out for the year in such a short amount of time on the water. It doesn't get much better than that. Now I can go half a dozen trips in a row without another fish and not get too discouraged...hah!
She measured 33 inches and weighed 13 ½lbs. The mantra for the day turned out to be “go with what you know works.” If I had kept experimenting with that “new to me” spinfish lure, I might never had switched to the pink spinner that took down this fish.
Tight lines!
