B
BaldTexan
0
My brother and a buddy finally got a chance to come out to Oregon for some salmon fishing and got his kitchen pass to fish all day Saturday. I wanted to take them to the coast for some incoming tide trolling which I have had the most success and the salmon are fresh from the salt. The weather forecast changed that plan so after a weather check, there was a window of opportunity in the gorge to fish the Columbia in nice weather until noon. I had been up there the previous week hover fishing eggs with a couple of buddies and only managed to get one to the boat. The bite is VERY light and takes a bit to get the feel of hooking these fish. The boat captain showed us how it was done with his 3 fish limit in a couple of hours.
Hooked up with a friend and head out there Friday with high hopes of figuring it out and bonking some nooks so I would be confident I could get my brother into some salmon the next day. We had multiple opportunities and had no luck getting a solid hook set. We finally concede and start trolling. We see another troller hook up and wait around to see if we can get a glimpse of his rig. I switch to the same spinner and we begin another troll and I get a very solid strike but no hookup. Geez! We continue our troll and I eventually reel in and I have no spinner. Leader broken at the knot. Dang! Rookie mistake. We bag it and head back to town empty handed. Nice weather, good company and a fun day, but very frustrating.
Get out there again the next morning with my Bro and his buddy and tell them how tricky it is to hook these mushy biters, but we'd have multiple opportunities and most likely a bit of frustration. We bait up and weasel the boat into the middle of the bumper boat circus. Lines in. Bam. Fish on. Bam. Fish on. Bam. Fish on. Bam. Fish on. Holy smokes. This is more like it! I finally got the feel for the bite. The buddy that took me out there last week later confessed that it took him 3 days out there to get the feel for it as well. It always feels good to add another catching tactic to the little knowledge and experience i have, especially after a day of getting multiple bites but no fish in the boat. Thankfully one was a hen and donated some roe to replace the eggs I fed them the day before.
Then my brothers buddy hooks into a giant oversize sturgeon. I tell him to break it off so we don't tangle up the area because it's packed with boats and we have more chinook to catch! He wants to fight it since he has never caught one and wants to at least get a glimpse of it. I maneuver the boat out of the pack and this sturgeon takes him to the wood shed for an hour with me laughing and telling him he'll never get that fish in on salmon gear. He stubbornly continues to get his whuppin'. At this point, I would like to see this beast that is pulling the boat all over the place. No such luck. After a lilttle over an hour the ol' fatty gets stubborn and dives straight down to the bottom and digs in. Mike can't budge it a bit. Finally Mike cries "Uncle" and we break him off. Missed over an hour of the bite and the wet weather began moving in so we hustle back to the ramp and get loaded and on the highway just as the high winds and rain whipped up. Thank God for weather apps!...and the forecast was actually correct.
Hooked up with a friend and head out there Friday with high hopes of figuring it out and bonking some nooks so I would be confident I could get my brother into some salmon the next day. We had multiple opportunities and had no luck getting a solid hook set. We finally concede and start trolling. We see another troller hook up and wait around to see if we can get a glimpse of his rig. I switch to the same spinner and we begin another troll and I get a very solid strike but no hookup. Geez! We continue our troll and I eventually reel in and I have no spinner. Leader broken at the knot. Dang! Rookie mistake. We bag it and head back to town empty handed. Nice weather, good company and a fun day, but very frustrating.
Get out there again the next morning with my Bro and his buddy and tell them how tricky it is to hook these mushy biters, but we'd have multiple opportunities and most likely a bit of frustration. We bait up and weasel the boat into the middle of the bumper boat circus. Lines in. Bam. Fish on. Bam. Fish on. Bam. Fish on. Bam. Fish on. Holy smokes. This is more like it! I finally got the feel for the bite. The buddy that took me out there last week later confessed that it took him 3 days out there to get the feel for it as well. It always feels good to add another catching tactic to the little knowledge and experience i have, especially after a day of getting multiple bites but no fish in the boat. Thankfully one was a hen and donated some roe to replace the eggs I fed them the day before.
Then my brothers buddy hooks into a giant oversize sturgeon. I tell him to break it off so we don't tangle up the area because it's packed with boats and we have more chinook to catch! He wants to fight it since he has never caught one and wants to at least get a glimpse of it. I maneuver the boat out of the pack and this sturgeon takes him to the wood shed for an hour with me laughing and telling him he'll never get that fish in on salmon gear. He stubbornly continues to get his whuppin'. At this point, I would like to see this beast that is pulling the boat all over the place. No such luck. After a lilttle over an hour the ol' fatty gets stubborn and dives straight down to the bottom and digs in. Mike can't budge it a bit. Finally Mike cries "Uncle" and we break him off. Missed over an hour of the bite and the wet weather began moving in so we hustle back to the ramp and get loaded and on the highway just as the high winds and rain whipped up. Thank God for weather apps!...and the forecast was actually correct.
