lets hear your very 1st salmon or steelhead story

[hound]

my 1st salmon was back in 1964 i was 8 years old..hmmm that makes me 34 right?my dad and mom took all of us kids 6 boys 2 girls to qualicum beach bc salmon fishing. we rented a 12' boat and dad and i and 2 other brothers went the 1st day and i boated 3 silvers that day,,,and i've been hooked ever since..
thanks dad!!!! images/icons/smile.gif

[O'City Fisherman]

10 years old out at buoy 10.. Got sick as a dog.. MY dad a ret. CG decided that I needed to have some fresh air instead of being below the deck on the bed.
He tied me off to the railing and after about 3 hours started to feel better.Decided to start fishing before we went home. Everyone else ( Dad, Mom, Brother in law and sister) in the boat got there limit. I put my line in and hooked onto a 56lb hog.. Took me about 1 hour to get it to the boat. Dad said that he was going to tie me back up for the ride home. But thank god for MOM I did not have to ride out in the cold all the way home images/icons/tongue.gif

[FallRiverGuy]

I'll bite!

I was 12 or 13, and my dad was going salmon fishing out of Depot Bay on a company fishing trip. Man-O-man can you bet I wanted to go bad I could taste it. As luck would have it, one of the guys failed to show, and since the boat was already booked, there was one empty seat. Dad said I could go, but I had to ask Mom first. I was at the dock at the time and had to go back to the camper parked along the road. I don't think I ever ran so fast in my life, it was a dream come true for me...almost. Mom said yes, and I ran back even faster with the adrenaline surging through my body. I remember asking everyone how would I know when I had a bite. They just said, "you'll know". They were right! images/icons/grin.gif I caught the first, and almost the only fish of the trip. That is where I learned about beginner’s luck, bragging
rights, and the love of Fish-On!

[OR Coast Range]

I grew up fishing for trout from smaller creeks and warm water fish (I guess I can admit that I caught a few bass in my day images/icons/rolleyes.gif ). So I didn't catch my first steelhead until this year.

I preparing to fish Eagle Creek, so I was checking the water levels the night before and reading Ifish. Ifish member Spooled posted that he had hurt his back and was looking for someone to row his driftboat on the Clackamas River so I emailed him. Well he didn't really trust his boat to a newbie like me images/icons/confused.gif but he ended up talking C-man (another Ifish member) into rowing so I got to go along for the ride.

We got our first fish on after only about 10 minutes! I played the fish all the way to the boat, but Troy ended up knocking the fish off with the net! images/icons/blush.gif I could tell that he felt like crap about it, it was my first steelhead after all. The way the day turned out it didn't matter much though. We ended up hooking into several nice fish and I got to tag my first steelhead. Thanks Troy!!

[Torchman]

OK, I grew up fishing in SoCal...but had always read and heard of "salmon" and "steelhead".....Well, being a fisherman, one of my first goals upon living here was to GET one!!! So I found this spot, where the Calawa meets the Bogachiel....and start up. I'm doing a "creep and crawl" upstream for HOURS!!! Back and across this river..be fish!! So I come to a hole that "looks fishy"....I climb up a tree to get a better look, and FISH!!! I found it!!! the Mecca!!! As I climb down the tree to fish, this gentleman of about 60 walks up ( I remind you..It took 4 HOURS OF HELL to get here!!!) So I ask this man, "howd'ya find THIS spot? He tells me..."This is the Hatchery Hole, everyone fishes here!" OK, I got my first Steelie that day....but GEEZ, I "reverse engineered" the way to get there....and man I felt ......stupid and proud!!! :-)

[DanS]

Torch,

Yeah, but think how much more you enjoyed YOUR fish than the rest of those dudes enjoyed THEIRS images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/grin.gif

O'City: I laughed out loud when I pictured you lashed to the railing with your old man crashing the waves
images/icons/shocked.gif What a hoot!

[ 05-10-2001: Message edited by: DanS ]

[Firedog]

This is a topic I was just thinking about the other day. My first steelhead was when I was 5. Fishing behind my great grandparents house Gobar Creek the main trib of the Kalama for trout I hooked about a 10lb steelhead. My Dad was in the garage and told me to just land the fish thinking I had a decent trout on I kept yelling and his buddy finally looke dout of the garage and they realized I had a bit bigger fish than a trout and came down and helped me land it. Was probably the blackest steelhead I have still caught to this day so Dad had me release it. A great memory and the first of many steelhead and Salmon. I do miss fishing that small creek fished it till I was in my early 20's. Do still spend as much time as I can on the family's prperty on the upper Kalama. That first steelhead was 29 years ago. caught my first chinook when I was 10 or 11. That is another story. images/icons/smile.gif images/icons/smile.gif images/icons/smile.gif

[Smily]

My First salmon was Last Tuesday afternoon. and I'll say it was about time. I had fished for years and to no avail did I have any luck until then. It was a nice trip where everyone came home with one. Mine was an 8lb'er and was 24"in length. It was the baby. my other friends caught a 12lb'er and a 15lb'er. There was also one Native that was caught that was released unharmed. I hope it doesn't take this long to catch my next one. I can't say my age or nobody will stop laughing at me. I'm starting out late in life but at least I'm starting!! images/icons/smile.gif Smily images/icons/smile.gif

[SteelieSteve]

1978 Mollala river 9 lb. spawned steelhead above Mollala. 1983 Charter out of Depoe Bay fishing for silvers, hooked 5 with the biggest going 8 pounds, thought it was not much fun to troll and then drag those salmon up to the moving boat plus the gear you use you could land a monster on. Best Salmon was a bright hen about 30# caught outside Tillamook Bay, now let me tell ya that fish fought hard. images/icons/cool.gif

[Beer Waggin]

My first Salmon was in about 1984. My Dad had just got a big 22" cabin cruiser. We took it out of Newport on a very flat ocean. I can remember there being hundreds of boats out there. Long story short, I got the first hook up of the day. Needless to say after about 30 seconds the reel blew up in my hand. My Dad's fishing buddy at the time grabbed the line as it was spooling out into the ocean. I can still see him pulling that fish in hand over hand. We finally get the fish in the net, bonk it and put it in the fish box. My Dad's buddy then starts to wrap up all of the fishing line laying in the bottom of the boat around the broken reel, rod still attached. When he gets done, he was so pi$$ed he just threw the whole set up overboard and blew a kiss at it as it sank to the bottom. The old man and I still laugh about that to this day. That was probably one of the best days we ever had on that boat.

[Deleted User]

How about first EVER fish: fishing the way upper Clack at about 7 or so years old and somehow I kept the line in long enough to catch a BEAUTIFUL fish of about 11". My dad removes the hook and then tosses it over his shoulder into the stickly bushes! It was a whitefish he told me, but I didn't know the difference. I was devastated.

First (and only) steelhead: fishing Deep Creek (Clackamas tributary) with three others. I was fishing holes longer than the others were, mostly because I've never been good at walking on slippery rocks so instead of attempting to keep up I just lagged back and fished the holes more. I cast just downstream of this single-lane bridge back where there were some blackberry vines and got a slow tug. I set the hook half-heartedly thinking that I was just hung up in the bushes and the rod started to throb. After about five minutes a very RED steelhead comes to shore just as my dad comes downstream to see what all the splashing was. We unhooked him and sent him back out to sea so he could spawn again.

Hooked what I SWORE was a steelhead once...turned out that I had back-snagged a trout and the river current made it fight like a Schoenborn special. You know the ones...they're great to hang clothes on.

First salmon: fishing the same hole as the whitefish story only about 8 years later (we fished this hole a LOT) and it was SLOW. Trout weren't biting, and I was bored. I decided to walk around and catch some local grasshoppers and try them for trout bait. I remember catching one specifically and thought "this looks like a lucky one". I went back and tied a #6 worm hook directly onto my 6 lb main line and stuck a couple split shot on. I figured that I'd probably just get hung up and snap it off.

It was later in the day and I started to cast some of those hoppers out. Each drift through a specific spot I'd get a quick hit and drop, each time I missed it. Then I tied on the "lucky hopper". Sure enough, that time around I set the hook and it was definitely bigger than a trout. The sun was down over the big hill so it was light enough to fish, but just barely. I said "fish on" but my dad figured I was just talking about a trout. I told him it was NOT a trout and we got ready for whatever it was. Turned out it was an 18" jack. Tagged it! I was pretty proud of myself.

First sturgeon was about 12". Second was about 82". They fought a bit differently. :-D

[ 05-11-2001: Message edited by: fobbman ]

[Bait O' Eggs]

I will throw a biggest springer into the mix since it is springer season. I was in High School and three of us were floating the Trask on innertubes. We come into a deep hole and could see a large fish. We being of the curious type tried to get a closer look. images/icons/rolleyes.gif The fish left the hole like a rocket images/icons/shocked.gif and went out into a long stretch of shallow water. I did not hear the exact words of the fish but it sounded like "just try to catch me" images/icons/tongue.gif . We spent the next 30 minutes chasing that fish up and down the shallows. We would get close and it had far more acceleration than we ever thought of having on those slippery rocks. We would almost get our hands on this fish and it was gone to the other side of the river. The fish was easy to keep track of since it was only about 6 inches deep and its back stuck out of the water most of the time. We finally caught that fish and quickly gave it last rights. Now we have a fish in our possesion and several miles of river to float on inner tubes. We take turns holding the fish under the water as we float along knowing all the while we were gonna get in trouble. We passed several people and gave them that, I dont have a fish under this inner tube look images/icons/rolleyes.gif images/icons/rolleyes.gif images/icons/rolleyes.gif Are you looking at me??

We get home finally and put it on the scales. I only get 1/3 credit for this fish that weighed in at 38 pounds. What a beautiful springer, what a chase, what an adventure, what stories we will tell our friends, what a dumb thing for a couple kids to do. I guess we were all young once. Wish I could get a few like that on a line today.

[FishinMission]

My first salmon was when I'm guessing to be about 8-9 years old. When I fished with my dad, he used to tell me to hold the butt of the rod under one of my legs to help control it if the "big one" came along. I grew up fishing the Willamette...and for those of you near my age or older that fished the Willamette in the early '60's...you all know how dirty the river was back then. Well...I'm sure it was one of those cold rainy days...when I was whining about being cold (before propane heaters...mind you) and wanting to go home. We were trolling spinners right under the old West Linn - Oregon City Bridge...when all of a sudden I thought I got snagged. Actually this was even before fishfinders existed. Now I know the waters about 120 feet deep there. Anyhew...it turned out to be about a 20 lb. springer...and boy...was I ever one happy kid. This was also my first experience at forgetting about those frozen fingers and toes the minute the rod bends. My first steelie was at Cazadero....many many years ago bobber fishing with eggs. Just a teeny weeny one...about 5lbs...but hey...size didn't count on the FIRST one!!

[hound]

great stories all

oregon city you we're probley luckey your dad teied you up..that fish probley would've pulled you in..lmao!!!!
bait o i can picture you darn kids chasing that poor springer around..
any way got to get going.. of to tillamook bay
have a great weekend everyone
cya
mike

[hawgcatcher]

My first Steelhead was caught when I was fourteen. I caught it while fishing for Salmon at Black Point at the Oregon City Falls on the Willamette. In those days you could park your car up town and walk through the paper mill to mill A and fish from shore. I was casting spinners from the shore near the "eyebolt". The rod went down quick and I was into it. It jumped several times and boy was I excited. After fifteen minutes, I brought it to shore. An Old timer netted it for me, then turned and said to "throw it back, it's just a damn Steelhead". Several others echoed his sentiments. I looked at the bright shiny fish and told myself that something that strong and fresh needed to go home with me. It weighed 13 pounds and I never forgot it.

My first Salmon was also caught there when I was thirteen. It was a Silver (Coho)that was in the first hole behind mill A. When three of us kids came down for the first time in November, we saw a hole that was full of Salmon. Little did we know that this was behind the deadline and closed to fishing. We climbed out on a ledge over the hole and started casting spinners. Bang, a fish hit and a fight ensued. It swam down and out of the hole to the main river, where it was landed. The three of us all got our two fish limit that day of ten pound plus fish. No one else was even there. The next day, when we went back, we were told that the waters that we fished, were closed. That was a letdown but it was a strong memory. One of those friends has since died at a young age. The other has moved somewhere into the coastal area.

[boater]

my first salmon was in 68 on the coast at westport with my dad, was a silver about 6 pounds. was just looking thru the scrap book and the oldest salmon picture i could find from ilwaco in 71 am i old or what lol

[MasterCaster]

My First Salmon was actually a jack at Pacific City, But my first BIG fish was later the same year 1998 at the boat ramp fishing off the sandbad with spinners. I had hooked and lost close to 30 fish that season already and was getting very disapointed when Bob the guy I was fishing with hooked and handed a fish off to me. It was the most exciting thing I had ever gotten into turned out to be about a #35 Crome bright hen. My only salmon of the season. I did catch my own steelhead later in the year on Three Rivers. Since that day I have been hooked for life. I have gotten many people into their first fish Salmon and steelhead since then and to see the excitement in their eyes just as I had in mine well...... there is no word for it just a wonderful feeling. I have bank fished all this time and am now looking into the driftboat world. I have never even been in a driftboat but hopefullly this year I will spend some time in some to learn the ropes and by next year I will be able to get into my own. Fr any of you that would like to see some of our pics our page is at http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/5728/fishing.html

[Fountainhead]

I also caught my first salmon out of Westport with my father in the early 70's. Puked my guts out also. First steelie came in early 80's off the beach on Whidbey Island. A freind's father owned a cabin on the beach and it was walk outside and cast. He had gone to shower and my bro had to run into town to get a license. I say ok and go to make a few casts. First cast I hook up with a 17 pounder bound to get to Canada.
Never forget the look on my bro's face when he gets back and there is a big silver steelie lyin on the porch. Couldnt believe I had caught it. F

[BUGLEMAN]

First salmon was a Coho out of Illwaco. I was 6 and went with dad and his friend. I remember that fish fought my arms off. The test really came when I hooked another one 5 min later. That one got away. In that evening Dad also took me Jetty fishing I said dad I got something and he told me to reel it up. Well it was so heavy and he kept saying to reel it up. He realized something was "wrong" and helped out. It happens to be a huge crab that the adults ate up gratefully. I still remember looking down at the jetty rocks, so slippery and wet with the white surf and setting summer sunlight. That was a cool camping trip.

MY first Steelhead was at Eagle Fern park just a few years ago. I asked my girlfriends father to go fishing at Eagle creek it was like March. So, I was drifting eggs and I get a few bumps and reel up no eggs. I bait up and this time It gets heavy. Set the hook and this thing goes on a run downstream. I get it on top and it sort of flops it's way over the wier and I land it. It wasn't pretty. It was a clipped darky spitting white on the beach. He asks me if I want to keep it. I proudly say, "yes it is my first one". He isn't very impressed when I bonk it. It isn't "too dark, right?". Well I proudly plan a steelhead dinner with french bread, salad and rice. That they go along with. It turns out to be fairly edible. But the dad does later admitt he was thinking he was actually only going to be eating salad and bread for dinner. I guess I am lucky to have those who care enough to suffer my inexperience.

[wak'm&stak'm]

All are good stories and here is mine and it is true.....
I was in the 4th grade (10 yeas old) and my dad took me up the yaquina in mid Sept.
My dad stuck one of those old metal 4 ft rods that only had 3 eyes on it in my hand. It had a ole anique reel that had no drag you just used your thumb, and was wrapped with some rotten line adout 10 pound test and onto this he tied a red hot shot.
Just like any 10 year old I couldn't hold sit still after the lunch in gone so he let my run the outboard. I put the pole up against it and had my foot on the handle when the fish hit and so I started out the fight with a back lash. My dad just shook his head when he saw the tail come out of the water.
It is still my biggest salmon to this day, but I will get to that. We chased the fish around the bay for 2 and 1/2 hours, and I remember 2 old guys in another boat that follwed us around to see if we would ever land it.
About half the way into this my dad said "if you land this fish I will buy you a real rod on the way home". Never once did my dad take the rod from me, he just said you hooked it so you land it.
We finally got it to the net about a 1/2 mile from where we started and when we got it on the scales it weighed 42 pounds minus eggs and guts, so I guess it may have been 47?
My father was good to his word and bought me a brand new bright yellow Eagle Claw pole and reel at the Coast to Coast store on the way home. To this day that was probably the best present I had ever recieved, because as a kid we didn't have much and I am sure it was money that we didn't have, but a memory that was priceless.

[First Bite]

I caught my first Steelhead by accident. I was fishing for trout on the Wilson river in mid summer about ten years ago when I did a terrible mis cast and my spinner went way up stream. I was retrieving it pretty fast through this riffle water when a suicidal Summer Steelhead hammered the spinner from nowhere. This fish went ballastic for about three minutes non stop. All the time I was wondering how I was going to land this huge fish. I finally got her into the shallows and I thought I'd just lift her onto the bank. I was only using 8 pound test and right when I had just cleared the water, my line broke. The hatchery hen plopped down in the shallows and was one fin sweep away from being gone. I threw down my pole and attempted to grab the fish. She squirted out from my hands and into the water. After about three unsuccessful attempts to grab the fish, I finally pinned her down to the ground. She was mint bright and around 8 pounds. I've been hooked on Steelhead ever since.

My first Salmon was another accident. I was jig fishing for Steelhead in late September on the Wilson river several years back. The water level was pretty low and I was using a red jig which had worked well for Steelhead in low water. I had only been at this drift a few minutes when my float disapeared. I set the hook and this slightly bronzed 25 pound Chinook rolled and took off. It took awhile but I did land the big Buck. That was a real eye opener for me. To this day I still use red jigs for Chinook in low water conditions.
Mark


www.firstcastjigs.com (http://www.firstcastjigs.com)

[ 05-13-2001: Message edited by: stlhdr ]

[Snagly]

My first salmon were caught on a trip to Alaska in 1994. Somehow we'd managed to book the one week a year when there weren't any kings or silvers in the river. Just zillions of pinks plus the odd sockeye and a few black spawning kings. We had an absolute blast on big (5-7lb) chrome pinks, fishing up till midnight some days. My buddy Rob caught a near-black 22lb king on a spinner and I captured the moment on video. My first steelhead came two years later on the return visit. I was drifting eggs for kings when an 8lb downstreamer latched on. Fought OK but had to be the ugliest steelhead I've ever caught: battered fins, fungus on its head missing about 3lbs body weight.

That same trip, however, I had a moment of triumph when I caught a couple of kings out of an impossible snaggy pothole we dubbed The Bathtub. Here's the write-up from an unpublished article on the trip:

"That first king out of the Bathtub should have been taped for America’s Funniest Home Videos. I hooked up on a spinner in fairly short order after arriving at 5:45 a.m. and the battle was joined. I put maximum “grunt” on the rod from the outset and swiftly pressured the fish upstream to the very head of the pool. Never having actually been there myself, I’d imagined that under water it was as non-descript as the smooth surface implied. I splashed upstream in pursuit of the runaway train I had prodded in that direction only to find the three to four foot deep water salted with tree trunks and substantial limbs. It was a shallow water minefield.

When the fish began to tire, I started on the familiar refrain “Help! I need help!” Instead, Pete-the-Bear stood thigh deep and watched the Chinese fire drill unfold. This was unexpected as Pete is neither deaf, stupid or as malicious as (most) of my other fishing buddies. Little did I know that another party’s guide, hand gaff in hand, had seen trouble brewing and had waded silently to about 20’ directly behind me. Pete was off the hook so to speak, but he didn’t mind seeing me in this highly agitated state. As the mystery guide, remained mum and out of sight I soldiered on alone after the silver torpedo, vowing silently to take vengeance on Pete’s first-born.

My stomach knotted when the near-beaten fish surged under a 12” diameter tree trunk in midstream and then thrashed on the surface on the other side. “Dang! I’m not going to lose another one like this!” I thought. Swiftly wading over, I jammed the rod tip under the sunken log, exerted maximum pressure and hauled the big king back out to my side. It immediately made another bee-line away from me, but this time took the high road and swam over the log. By this time the 20lb Maxima green was as abraded as my nerves: something was going to snap long before this fish saw the beach in any conventional sense. When the tiring king paused on its side on top of the log, I pounced with a commitment a brown bear would have been proud of. A second later I had an arm full of very unhappy salmon and was staggering to shore to scattered applause. Mid-way, the still-under tension line broke, so I paused to tuck the rod under my elbow before it sank.

Fish, rig and fisherman staggered ashore and I let out a war-whoop that would have done "The Last of the Mohicans" proud. Pete and I exchanged high-fives while most of the rest of the fishermen within eyesight laughed themselves silly. I didn’t care one bit: somewhere Vince Lombardi was smiling.
The rest of the Asia Mob wandered downstream to see close at hand what all the commotion was about.

There were hearty congratulations and a few jibes of the sort “Didn’t you think Brad stepped off a ledge when he went after that fish? Thought for a moment that he might drown . . . . Thought for a moment we’d find out what it was like on the river when it was quiet.” (Jon Zax, former friend.) Thus emboldened by my crude how-to lesson, our crew tightened their drags all the way down, sharpened 2/0 Siwashes and waded into action #5 spinners at the ready. The next five hours saw another five kings landed out of about 20 hooked: not a great catch ratio, but certainly more thrills-per-minute than fishing is likely to produce any where else."

I consider that king to be my first "true" (self-guided, sizeable) salmon/ steelhead. Fishing for 20-35lb fresh kings in a small river is akin to a fistfight in a phone booth and definitely one of the best adrenaline rushes around. (One of my buddies on the trip, Pete's brother Rob, has been back to the same river FOUR more times for kings -- I can't get him to even try steelheading.)