The Fishing Thread

http://sustainablelivingproject.blog...

Just in case you need a new wallet

Druidpeak wrote:

I've only ever fished a total of two times in Oregon, and they were both on the Wilson River. I'd imagine that is the nearest option for a smaller channel that might be more conducive to fly fishing. Both times I was fly fishing, the first time actually pursuing winter salmon/steelhead(I believe it was in February), and then an august trip looking for cutthroat catch and release. On the salmon/steelhead trip I was with my brother who was rigged for a float and jig style, for bank fishing. He was the only one to actually hook into anything. We were definitely late for that run though.

I can ping a friend of mine in Portland who is nuts for salmon/steelheading and see what he might recommend.

Well, if you come up with anything and need someone to meet up with you with a drift boat, let me know. I'd be interested in doing some drift boat fishing in that area during June/July for summer steelhead or just trout. I have a couple 6 weight fly rods which are good all-around trout rods and you could get a smaller summer steelhead with it I've read. I'd probably only be able to make it out on a Saturday or Sunday because I want to save my vacation days for the fall salmon runs.

Paleocon wrote:

http://sustainablelivingproject.blog...

Just in case you need a new wallet

I'll have to keep that in the back of my head as a potential project. Sure would be cool.

My wife and I got out on a local lake to fish for panfish last weekend. The fishing was subpar, saw no signs of bluegill, though I could see spots where they had made beds at some point. I did see one decent largemouth bass swimming around, but had no luck enticing it. We'll go back in a couple weeks, hopefully warming water temps will bring the bluegill out to play.

It was my wife's first time fishing from a float tube. Unfortunately the wind kicked up making it tough paddling. She had fun, though, just being out on the water in the sunshine.

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Despite a fishless outing, I agree that it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.

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That looks like a blast and what a beautiful area! That's the one bummer thing about salmon fishing in this area. It's a zoo, and rather industrial (both places we've gone have paper mills in the vicinity).

I've caught a few largemouth bass before in a friend of mine's farm pond. One was a really big one. I thought I had got a snag but it turned out to be a fish after awhile. The length went from the tips of my fingers up to my elbow. It was really fun.

Well, we went fishing today and it's getting pretty thin in terms of fish. We actually hooked one briefly, but unfortunately it shook the hook after 15 seconds or so. It was the only action we got and was a huge bummer because the herring was snapped off, and that fish should have been completely hooked. Grrrr! Saw 4 caught the whole day and when we got back the count was 9 fish for 30 boats or so that'd returned. Ah well, we gave it our best shot.

I made a silly salmon flag! I figured it would be funny given we're a little old wooden boat from the 1960s among tons of $30,000-$100,000 boats.

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It sounds cool particularly when it's windy. It makes me feel like a sailor, and I love it.

It swims nice

Paleocon wrote:

It swims nice

A friend of my wife's just invited me to go fishing in Ft Myers in July. Totally stoked.

Paleocon wrote:

A friend of my wife's just invited me to go fishing in Ft Myers in July. Totally stoked.

Rad! What kind of fishing and what for?

I talked to my uncle today, and it seems I'm taking another day off to go spring Chinook fishing this week. Since the season seems to be winding down, we very likely won't get one, but it'll be fun to show him how everything works.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

A friend of my wife's just invited me to go fishing in Ft Myers in July. Totally stoked.

Rad! What kind of fishing and what for?

I talked to my uncle today, and it seems I'm taking another day off to go spring Chinook fishing this week. Since the season seems to be winding down, we very likely won't get one, but it'll be fun to show him how everything works.

He's taking his boat down there so we are probably trolling and jigging. Looking to go for Tarpon for a little bit, but I would like to catch something I can eat as well.

Paleocon wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

A friend of my wife's just invited me to go fishing in Ft Myers in July. Totally stoked.

Rad! What kind of fishing and what for?

I talked to my uncle today, and it seems I'm taking another day off to go spring Chinook fishing this week. Since the season seems to be winding down, we very likely won't get one, but it'll be fun to show him how everything works.

He's taking his boat down there so we are probably trolling and jigging. Looking to go for Tarpon for a little bit, but I would like to catch something I can eat as well.

Well, that sounds awesome! Can't wait to hear the report. Take some pictures to share even if you don't catch anything.

Absolutely.

I plan on bringing four rods because we will probably go after everything from mahi to Spanish Mack.

Story time!

Well, my uncle and I had a great and an extremely lucky day today out on the Willamette (Multnomah Channel). We got one! It was the only hit we had all day. It ended up being a hell of a fight. Took about 12 minutes to get the thing in. It zoomed out like crazy zinging line off the reel about four times when we got it close to the boat. I finally got the thing tired and my reel came off just as we were going for the netting! In all of the struggle, I had somehow unscrewed the reel seat thing out a bit. It was my nice G Loomis pole, too, so I'm not sure how I managed that. My hands at that point were basically like T. Rex hands. I had been death-gripping the pole and reel for so long that they were just tired out (need to watch that next time). So, I managed to T. Rex the reel with my dead hands and pull the fish up a bit, and my uncle netted it perfectly. We got that one by the seat of our pants. I'm still a little amazed we didn't lose it. It was the smallest one I've got so far at 31.5". Turns out, this one was a female. Apparently females fight a lot harder than males. Either that or this was one bad ass female Chinook.

Got some great pictures of my uncle with the fish. He manages to get the perfect amount of fisherman dorkiness in that first picture.

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The fishing continues to get worse as time goes along. We didn't see anything caught the whole day which has never happened before, although, when we got in 7 were caught out of around 15-20 boats that came in.

The Columbia ended up getting a special opening for 3 days this weekend. We'll probably be hitting that up at least one of those days to see how things go. Other than that, we'll probably call it a season in in terms of the spring Chinook and hit the salmon fishing up in the fall.

Well, it turns out where we could fish on the Columbia given our small, slow boat's limited mobility was one of the few areas that was closed, so we fished the usual area yesterday and today. My dad had one on about 30 seconds yesterday but it just shook the hook. Today, my brother joined us! With my 2-pole license we had 4 rods going and fished from 5:30 till 11:00. I caught a small 27" one at 6:30 or so which went great and put us in high spirits. The plan was to send any of the three rods other than my dad's over to my brother, but we didn't get anything other than my dad catching a sturgeon which was really fun except it didn't turn out to be a salmon. We carefully took a picture, revived it, and sent it on its way.

We sent the salmon home with my brother. Told him to just make steaks instead of filleting since it was smaller and he doesn't have any experience filleting (It takes a few tries to figure all that out). He sent me a picture with the steaks ready to go on a cedar plank in the oven. Looked delicious so I hope he and his wife enjoy it. He sent me a picture:

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They're just doing the salt, pepper, and thin lemon slices like we've been doing. I told him to send me a picture of my nephew holding it before he cleaned it, and he sent me this:

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My nephew and niece are adorable! That's the nephew who my brother and I took out the other day but they got rained out early in the morning. At least my brother got out on a successful trip and my nephew got to hold a salmon! This was our last trip for spring chinook. Ended on a high note. We never saw one caught other than this one the whole weekend. Most people were out on the Columbia, but reports weren't great out there, and a lot of guide boats were coming in where we were just trying everything they could think of.

It's been a bit, but I finally managed to get some more fishing in this past weekend. The first Saturday in June is the opening day for trout fishing many rivers in Washington State and a friend of mine comes over to visit for the weekend to fish our favorite small river. Before that, though, we went out on Friday afternoon to do some smallmouth bass fishing on the lower Yakima River. It's a great way to spend a few hours, floating along casting flies to hungry bass. Although there are some monsters in there, we generally only pick up smaller fish, but they put up a heck of a fight for their size.

Pretty average size fish. They'll still try to rip the rod outta your hands if you aren't paying attention.
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Love those red eyes.
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Despite being pretty much right in town, it's generally pretty quiet and relaxing in the evenings. We usually go out early or late enough to avoid the swarms of recreational floaters.
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Love evenings on the river.
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Saturday was a whirlwind of hot sun, cold rushing water, and small, wild rainbow trout caught by the dozens on dry flies. Too much fun to stop and take many photos, only grabbed one of my friend fishing below a small log jam. Pretty much anywhere you can find a bit of slack water, you can find at least a few hungry trout waiting for a meal to drift by.

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Yum.

I was thinking about you last week when I heard that there was a section of the Columbia that was shut down near Portland because of an oil spill or something. Was wondering if it was near you.

Oh nice! I'll bet that trout fishing was a blast.

Double grrrrr

still hoping that they open the South Atlantic Red Snapper season this year.

I don't have a cool story to go along with it other than it was 100 degrees outside today and I decided to go stand waist deep in the Columbia River after work. Caught this girl right before I was getting ready to head home for the night. Measured her at about 17 inches, put up a heck of a fight on my ultralight spinning gear.

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Dang! That's a big smallmouth.

Arise!

I've been fishing the last couple days in the Yaquina River which dumps out into the ocean at Newport, Oregon.

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Lost one at the boat on Friday and lost one on Saturday but then hooked and caught another one 20 minutes later. They were all huge and this is the biggest Chinook I've ever caught at 37" and 23.75 lbs. We basically lost the other two due to 25 lb leader breaking. This one may have been caught due to my switching to 30 lb leader in frustration. I'll go into more detail and share more pictures tomorrow.

I have never experienced more emotional lows and more emotional highs in the same day as a human being. It's probably the best day I've ever had. We've been doing some Yaquina and Columbia salmon fishing the last few weeks and have been really unlucky for around 5 trips with nothing until these last couple days.

I was out kayaking earlier this summer and witnessed a 14 year old girl real in a 52" Chesapeake rockfish. She was screaming the whole way.

There are no words for that kind of jealousy.

None.

That's a big fish.

I noticed the Columbia River is chock full of boats here up above McNary Dam again, I assumed some kind of Salmon were running, but no idea what exactly.

My wife and I went out and bought a couple of kayaks not too long ago and have been out fishing a few times. We're planning on going this afternoon if we can get motivated to get out the door.

We're out on the Columbia right now, and it is packed. Not exactly pleasant. Fishing isn't good. Seen 3 caught, and I could probably count about 150 boats around us.

We have seen some people salmon fishing from kayaks. That one I caught Saturday probably could have towed you a mile or two.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

That's a big fish.

I comforted myself in the knowledge that it probably didn't taste that great at that size.

Yeah those grapes were probably sour.

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Heheh. You know, salmon fishing is just about the least relaxing activity I can think of. It's just physically and emotionally draining. I use weekend and vacation days to go salmon fishing and essentially recover on work days.

I do find trout fishing relaxing.