Most Memoriable Chinese Fire Drill

[SilverBullets]

Have you ever had one of those days fishing when everything seemed to be done correctly. Doesn't happen too often, but when it does it's the one dreams are made of. A couple years back while kokanee fishing I had one of those days. Got out on the water at daybreak and started fishing. Got a fish on my rod right after lowering it down, so changed out the other rod to the same thing. That's when it started...complete chaos!! The rods began to go nuts, when one got reeled in the other would go down, back and forth it went, seemed like within a minute or two after lowering them the rods would begin to bounce. It was hard to keep up with, and after around 20 minutes we stopped to catch our breath. Not keeping an eye on the boat, the gangtrolls off one ball got wrapped up around the kicker motor. By this time the other boats around us saw all the commotion and were closing in. We started up the other motor and went to the middle of the lake to have a cup of coffee and count, knowing we were close to our limit. We were one short, and as usual it took around an hour to get the last one...go figure! Haven't had a day like that since. Anyone care to share your experiences with Chinese Fire Drills?

[TroutBass]

I have had a day or two like that jigging for kokanee. Drop the jig, lift it once or twice and fish on. Always fun when you can release the majority of them because you know you have plenty of time to catch a few more fattys.

Days like that are few and far between though.

[6wapiti6]

A few years ago some friends moved here form Nebraska. His kids (6 & 8) wanted to go fishing right away and this guy had no clue how to catch a fish unless it had whiskers.
They lived near Lacamas lake so I volunteered my boat for the day and told him what he needed to bring. It was my first trip of the year that spring and I really didn't have much faith in how the day was going to turn out. I prepared them by explaining that we may or may not catch some fish, but that we would have a great time no matter what. I was sure to bring lots of snacks and figured they could at least watch for fish on the depth finder. Then I found out that was going to be a problem, the transducer cord was cut sometime during the winter and it wouldn't work.
Oh well, it will be a fun boat ride I thought to myself. Well, you guessed it 3 hours later I bet we hooked and realeased well over 50 trout. The kids couldn't keep a smile off their faces and Dad was the hero for bringing the "special" lures and fishing rods. Since then I have been able to get them into their first sturgeon and steelhead (still working on a salmon). That one trip has taught me to be positive out there and you never know what may happen.

[laxmike11]

I had a day like that this summer out on south twin. As soon as my gear hit the bottom i would get a bite. the downside was they were all about 7 or 8 inches but still fun. I went back out the next day and caught them just as quickly but these ones were all about 12-14 inches and came back with a limit after 1 hour of fishing. By far the best time I have had fishing there.

[Da Bank Maggot]

I've mentioned this before, but it was the day I caught the fish pictured in my avatar.

It was about this time of the year, back in 1992. The place was Sunrise Lake, on the White Mtn. Apache Reservation in Arizona. I was targeting brookies, and knowing they were on the spawn, I had thought to bring some rubber egg clusters

Normally, Sunrise is about the same size as Hagg, but on this occasion, it was completely frozen over...except for a small section near the dam, about the size of a backyard swimming pool.

It was literally wall-to-wall Brook trout in there -- and they would grab my egg clusters at almost the second they hit the water. I stopped counting the number of Brookies I C&R'd at twenty.

[deeptrout]

i have told the story many times about the day I took my friend and his son boat fishing for their first time ever. I had a new bow mount trolling motor with an electric controller, not like the mechanical foot pedals I had always had before. Shortly after getting all the trolling gear out and explaining how we were going to keep it all from tangling, the motor started undulating right and then left, high and then low, dead stop then full speed ahead. no matter what i tried to make it do, it would do something else, usually the worst thing possible at that moment. i quickly had a huge mess of tangled gear somewhere directly under the boat and two new fishermen wondering if they had done anything to cause this and if I was about to head to shore and home before they had had a chance to catch anything. While my friend and his son worked on the tangle, I took apart the controller to find a membrane switch that had delaminated, allowing water in so that when squeezed in the area that should cause the motor to stop, water would squirt over to the area that would cause go, and then when squeezed for go, the water would squirt over to the left turn area and so on. it was hopeless, even when dried out as much as possible at that hour on a foggy morning.
This is when the story gets better: After that i was forced to troll with my 115 jet with the reverse cup up halfway, trying to go slow enough for lures to do anything but skip along. I gave up on blades and went light, using teasers and wedding rings alone, but after seeing fish take the lures within 5 feet of the transom, i was soon just tying up egg hooks with pautzkes and hooking up fast! we were catching and releasing fish most of the morning, eventually keeping nice fat limits for everyone. I have tried it since and never even come close to that days success story, and the face of my friends son as he hooked into hot fish after hot fish on light tackle 5 to 25 feet from the transom will stay with me forever.
I now have a radio controll for my current bow mount and no more chinese fire drills. So this is the moral of my story: Don't let anything distract you from having a positive experience, if you will just let it happen, good things will sometimes come from the worst possible starts.

[SilverBullets]

While steelhead fishing years ago up in Washington, I took a good friend of mine to a secret hole I had been going to off and on. Usually on a good day you might get a bite or two, but coming home with a fish was not always the case. It was a beautiful spot though, and that always made up for the lack of fish in my opinion.
We were new to this type of fishing, and usually would use sand shrimp for bait. On this particular day, the weather started out nice, but began to change. It started raining, and after a while it became a torrential downpour. There we were, no rain gear, standing there getting soaked. My friend decided it was too much work tieing up the sandshrimp, so decided to tie on a Mepps spinner. That's when the fire drill began, he couldn't keep the fish off! By now I was digging through my tackle box, hoping to find the same spinner...there it was!! I quickly threw it on and we both had the time of our life, standing there, wet as can be, raining like there was no tomorrow, and loving every minute of it! Ended up bringing home limits that day. We went back up to that secret spot a couple times afterwards, and of coarse they wouldn't even look at that spinner again. Whenever I talk with my old friend, that day in the rain always comes up. We got soaked to the bones, and had the time of our life!

[Willis]

Had several days like that on devils lake this spring and summer, Once right after they stocked it trolling for trout and myself in seperate boats were trying to find the fish I had no luck and we passed eachother I was fishing the north side of the lake and here he comes flying up the lake to let me know he found the fish, I got over to the spot and wam fish on within 30 sec we trolled the place for hours catching so many fish I only kept the fat ones but released well over 30 fish I think trollin released 60 or more, we ended up anchoring up and tossing everything in the box at them to see what they wouldnt hit and they hit it all. several other day later in the season I had my self and 3 others on the boat we ended up with a quad on it was a real trick there were fish all over the boat, and several days with me and my son that we had hookups every couple minutes trollin.

[kill2hunt]

growing up trout fishing i have had alot of really good days where the fish just didnt stop. once at horseshoe lake they had just stocked it and we couldnt keep them off we would find what was like schools of herring and drift crawlers in them. ive also had days at rainbow lake with the brookies where it was hectic in the rubber raft. but i think my favorite has to have to be the dechutes for summers. there are those mornings there where you get hit basically every drift before the sun gets in the canyon.

[fishin' is livin']

Pendlend Lake, with my two younger boys. Two scooby doo fishing poles and slow trolling black roostertails. As soon as I put the lines out, "Igot one!!" at first I figured it was a snag, but I was wrong, I swear, every 5-10 seconds they caught a fish. That was about 5-6 years ago, and still remember it to this day.

[uhmw]

We got out of the nehalem jaws in a 15 ft smokercraft on a very blue bird day in late agust and proceeded to catch 12-16 lb silvers on demand. They were the bigest silvers I had ever seen. My buddy was releasing a fish and I reeled up my pole layed it down to help him. With the herring dangling in about 6 ft in the water I suddenly heard my reel screaming-Bam fish on!!!I almost lost my pole, the reel hung up on the bench and I was able to save it. We ran out of herrings and started to use the herring heads from the cut plugs as soon as they hit 20 ft -fish on. We had fish on at the same time several times, I was fishing with my long time fishing buddy and we still talk about how much fun we had that day.:meme:

[nevermiss]

I've had all kinds of amazing fishing experiences, but maybe my favorite was a couple years ago. My kid sister flew to Pendleton from Rhode Island where she's lived maybe a decade. She's got 3 little kids, her son was 5 at the time. Being the "sportsman" of the immediate moment I was petitioned to take her kids fishing. Best place I could think of here around Pendleton was McKay Reservior. Grabbed a couple of my poles and some gear and away we went. Finally found a stretch of beach that wasn't crawling with fisherman or swimmers or waterskiers. From the house to the water I kept warning my sister that likely we wouldn't catch anything. Was I ever wrong! Little Johnny kept catching one fish after another! Carp, bass, catfish--he cranked 'em all in--(never mind he was using my pole,bait, hooks, weights and bobbers--and that I baited his rig and casted out for him.) We all got a laugh about how Johnny all of a sudden regarded himself the "expert" fisherman! I'm sure I was in the same mood when my dad first took me fishing even younger than that! We giggled our way home!

[Aufish101]

Mine was chasing Kokanee at Suttle. I was jigging around the buoy at Link Creek at 35' when my depth finder jumped up to 12'. I boated 6 fish in 5 minutes! Then the depth finder went back to 35' and I never did find that school again! I did end up with a limit, it took a while, I was reduced to picking off singles. Pink/White jig was the ticket that day.

Aufish101http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/2/poisson_39.gif

[Half fast Toyn]

trollin for Silvers between the jetties at Winchester Bay(mouth of the Umpqua). Just me and my wife nestled in between 200 other boats. With the current, the object was just to troll fast enough to hover in one spot. We had two doubles and it was so tight in there you could not leave the tiller without endangering other boats. So id set one hook then put it back in the rod holder... and set the other one. Then the wife would fight a fish as I took the tiller... then we would switch off and id fight the other one. We netted our own fish. It was just one of those days fishing that could never be repeated. We boated 12 silvers before we got our 4 fin clipped..

Then there was the time when 4 outta 5 tuna rods went off... but thats another story and not on my boat.....

[No Wishin Just Fishin]

:meme:1970's working for Larry on the THIRSTY II as a baitboy when He was getting Charter going. You could keep 3 in those days, and right after we turned the corner behind the South jetty 3 rods went off, then 2 more. Before we got to the breakers we had all of 21 chinnok flopping on deck and the 3 nets on board had 2 or 3 in each. The five guys were from Tice electric and my arms were never so tired. Bait and net for 20 minutes straight. Nothing like it before or since.

[Dullhook]

Well, I've had some red hot catchin' days but there's been plenty of ice cold ones to keep humility in tact and a measure of respect for the fish.

One time back in the early 80's my dad and I made a May trip to Crane Prairie. It was cold and windy and we were fishing the Cultus Channel (open boat) bundled up like Eskimos. We'd been using our usual fair of crawlers under bobbers, crawlers and marshmallows off the bottom, and trolling Crane Prairie Specials and Flatfish. We weren't doing worth a nickel and decided a hot fire and warm camper was a better alternative. As we were about to pack it up and head for camp the sun started to peek out a little bit. It was still frigid and we pulled anchor. As we were about to leave we noticed some activity near the treeline on the edge of the channel. Some kind of hatch must have been triggered because we saw some dimpling on the surface between the waves. Awe what the heck, with numb fingers I tied a phony looking 'made in Taiwan' fly onto a couple feet of leader and a plastic bubble and flung it toward the treeline. No sooner had it hit the water than...slam fish on! It jumped out of the water and threw the hook. Okay one more time. Cast it back out there and down went the bubble. Wound up landing a 15" cranebow.

Got dad all rigged up and did we have a ball. Within an hour we'd both limited out. All 14"-18" bows and a couple of fat brookies to round out the package. We probably lost over half of the hook-ups by the fish throwing the hooks on the jump or breaking the leader off in the trees. Just about every cast resulted in bobber down. It didn't matter what kind of fly we used as long as it still had a couple of feather strands on it. The more chewed up the better. Of course about then we thought that we had it all figured out as far as getting an easy limit the next day. As you might guess we never had another bite on flies. We switched back to rigging with crawlers and caught a few but never did taste the hot action of that previous day for the rest of the trip. :whistle: :)