Weekend Forecast

[Megabites]

Hi All,
New member here, Great board!
I do about every kind of fishing and hunting out there so this is a great board for me to see what is going on. I am a computer professional in the Canby area by trade but prefer to be fishing somewhere. Enough about me, anyone have a forecast for Sunday. My boat is loanly. :cool:

[TheRogue]

Great Moniker!!!

Sunday doesn't look to fantastic, but maybe no wind??

kyle

[Megabites]

Sorry I wasn't clear. Does anyone have a fishing forecast. As in where are the fish going to be? In particular the springers. Longview, St. Helens, Swan Island, ect. :cool:

[BUGLEMAN]

I am not a pro but the ODFW Sellwood report is encouraging. My choice is wigglers on the Lower Columbia though.

[SailCat]

From The Guide's Forecast which will go out this evening:

Columbia River Fishing Report - With the recent set of favorable tides and string of nice weather, sport anglers from Altoona near Astoria upstream to Bonneville experienced the best catches of the season this week. Pro guide Andy Betnar found some good fishing at the Altoona wing jetty on 4/3 as he landed 3 nice springers on plugs on the outgoing tide. He had 2 of the fish boated by 8AM. Andy stated that there was about a dozen fish taken for 20 boats at the wing jetty he spent most of his time at. He did find a few more biters that didn’t materialize just a bit further upstream. The tides are moving to a later morning show making a later start a favorable option as we near the weekend. The problem is that there are many motivated anglers willing to get up quite early to save the best spots on the jetties for when the tide starts moving out. It may pay to do some exploring in the vast Columbia searching for shallower sandbars or vacant wing jetties to work you plugs from. This would be the year to try out different areas with a large run size to work with. Pro guide David Johnson reports, “I started fishing the lower Columbia today and it started good. We hooked seven and landed six, all on Kwikfish. I heard good reports from up and down the river from St Helens down.” Upstream, pro guide Chris Vertopoulos has been having success trolling herring in 13 to 17 feet of water at Davis Bar near the mouth of the Willamette River. Most boats fish trolled herring here and can mix it up between the Oregon and Washington sides. Davis Bar is on the Washington side. Chris got 2 nice springers on 4/1 at Davis Bar. In the gorge, the bite has slowed a bunch for the bank anglers and the boaters as well. This lull happened last year as well which is surprising after such a strong start- especially for the bank anglers. Very few boats had springers on Saturday at Bonneville.

On the sturgeon scene, the best action remains at Cape Horn. With the beginning of springer season and the retention of sturgeon from Tuesday - Saturday, sturgeon effort has dropped. Keepers are still falling to smelt in the gorge area.

The Guide's Forecast - Sleep in! Start your day a little later after the tide starts to run but focus your efforts from Altoona (John Day Boat Ramp) upstream to Goble (St. Helens). If you get there early and the tide is not running, plan on trolling herring but the plug bite on outgoing has been much more productive. Remember that the further upstream of the mouth of the Willamette that you fish, the less likely you are to take advantage of the 80,000+ springers that are bound for the Willamette. It’s just a bit too early to play those odds seeing how we are still a few weeks away from peak migration into the Columbia River. If trolling is your show, target the mouth of the Multnomah Channel near St. Helens earlier in the morning and you can always switch to plugs as the outgoing tide should be running into the late afternoon by the weekend. The forecasted precipitation due to hit on Friday will leave anglers under a low pressure system but the water shouldn’t muddy (assuming we get significant precipitation) until after the weekend crowd is back to work/school.

Hope this helps!

~MT
The Guide's Forecast (http://www.theguidesforecast.com)

[Megabites]

Thanks for all of the info. I like the St. Helens idea. Anyone have good directions to the boat ramp in St. Helens? Is it a good ramp? Are there any fees? Ya know the basics.

[Phish_on]

I can only fish on Sunday, so my forecast is: there will be a lot of BOATS. I'm toying with the idea of going to St. Helens, but I can get just as big a skunk in the Willamette, 5 minutes from home.

:rolleyes:

[Bounty Hunter]

Ramp at Scapoose Bay is nicer and has more parking. You have to run a little farther, but I think it's worth it because you get to throw rocks at the abandoned paddle-wheel boat along the way. JUST KIDDING!
:smile:

[Megabites]

Scapoose Bay ramp sounds good to me. How about directions to it. Anyone?