BOUY 10/ASTORIA '04

[David Johnson]

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Saturday, 8-14

A lot of people think that fishing at Bouy 10 and Astoria is all about catching a lot of coho. Not so. In fact we get an impressive number of chinook.

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I go about it this way, I fish for chinook and if there are coho around we will catch them too.

This week was my first week of '04 and a perfect example of what I'm talking about. With a limit of two fish, only one being a chinook, we have been hitting the water at the crack of 7 or so and limiting out on chinook every day and then working to pick up a few coho. It's a little early for the coho but they will be showing soon :smash:

We even caught a wild summer steelhead on Saturday.

Some people complain about catching a lot of wild, or un-clipped coho, saying, "they must have missed clipping fish at the hatchery this year....yada, yada, yada..."

I think the actual reason more unclipped fish are caught is because the wild fish are that much more agressive.

I know that earlier in the summer when fishing up the Columbia we will catch at least four un-clipped to one hatchery even though the dam counts clearly show that there is 2/3 more hatchery fish moving up the river. We catch more wild fish because they strike more often. I'm sure that this is the case with the coho too.

Since we are on the subject of releasing wild coho please be careful with these fish and if at all possible don't net them but release them while they are still over the side.

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[David Johnson]

What a World Class Fishery!
There aren't too many other places were you can consistantly catch up to 10+ chinook per day :dance:

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Early this week Astoria was like last week, lots of chinook and just a few coho.

About mid week the silvers did show and now we are hooking over 20 fish a day with limits common.

There's some nice fish around too, so far Fred from eastern Washington took a 41 pounder on Wednesday evening :dance:


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Be Prepared

The Boy scouts had it pegged when they coined the matto-Be Prepared.

Some of that would go a long ways with a lot of people that have fished with me these last two weeks.

The biggest one is Never underestimate the weather on the Oregon Coast

The hot weather in Portland has lulled so many people into coming down to Astoria on a fishing trip way, way under dressed. We have had rain, fog, mist, over cast skies and wind that sends showers of spray into the boat. 65 degree air with a wind chill of 20 to 30 miles an hour combined with this kind of weather makes for a misarable trip if all you have are shorts, sweat pants or a tee shirt.

I've seen many grown men reduced to a quivering lump in a very short time out on the water.

I wouldn't even think of going on a trip to the coast without dressing in layers and my full set of heavy duty raingear. You will get what you pay for in raingear and I see the cheap stuff end up lining the gargabe can at the end of the day more often than not. A poncho will not cut it either, they are fine for sitting at a ball game but they have no place in a boat as the wind helps the water find it's way in to soak you.

When dressing/packing plan for the worst.

Geting Your Fish Home
Bring a big cooler. I don't know if it's low expectation or just not thinking much about it but almost everyone comes down on a fishing trip with too small of a cooler (or without one at all)

Also, if you have a lot of fish it's a good idea to have some extra cash to have it vac-packed so that it doesn't go bad in the freezer.

Motion Sickness
The waters of the Columbia in the Astoria area can get choppy from wind and boat traffic.

I haven't had anyone get sick yet this year but if you think you might take some medication, take it at least an hour before the trip. I've had clients in the past take it after they got sick and they just end up throwing it back up into the water.

Bathroom Breaks
Plan accordingly, it's a long way back to the dock and there just isn't any place to pull into shore.

Go before you leave, let the captain know an hour or two before you have to be taken in, cut back on fluids if need be, or be prepaired to go on the boat.

Running back into the dock during a hot bite can make the difference between a limit by noon or staying out 'till 4, not to mention wasting a ton of gas.

Licenses
Be sure you have it with you and not on the dresser, in the car, in your fishing vest or in another pair of pants. Have in in your wallet or purse.

Hopefully some of these things can be considered and there will be some much more comfortable people out on the water.
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Break Down

Last Wednesday will be a memorable trip.

We headed out at first light and made our first pass, about 45 minutes, no bites. So as we were heading to another spot my big motor dies on us. After failing to get her going again and not wanting to mess with taking off the cowling out on choppy water we headed for the harbor with the kicker. 45 minutes later we are in a slip and going through the moter.

Fuel filter OK, spark plugs OK. Several calls are made to Stevens. They suggest to disconect the emergency kill switch. Bingo, she fires right up. Out we go again. I decide to motor just up river from Hammond until we are sure it's going to run fine, that way we wont have to fight that outgoing current that ripping past Hammond at about 5.5 miles an hour (the first time in I was glad that I got the 15hp kicker intead of the 9)

Miss, miss, dead. No motor. Back to the harbor on the kicker and back on the phone.

We are told to disconect the key and how to hot wire it. Again, bingo, she fires right up. Now we know the problem. Short in the key switch. I check with several parts places and Greg's Marine in Garibaldi has what we need.

This is were I'd like to thank Don, Mike, Fred and Blacky for the patience to stick it out through all this and for the mechanical help :bowdown: :bowdown:

So, $170, 100 miles of driving and several hours later we are back in the game. The show must go on!

Our lines are in the water at 2:45. Ten minutes later our first fish hits the floor and by 6:30 we are heading back in with a limit of chinook plus some coho. We even fed a nice 25 pounder to a seal :eek:

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Fred caught his biggest salmon ever, 41 pounds of Up River Bright Chinook :applause: We put the filets on a scale and it came out with 27.5 pounds.

[David Johnson]

Boy did last week start out a wet one. The remnants of a typhone somewere in the South Pacific blew in through our waters the first part of the week giving us the wetest weather of the year. It also threw off the fishing a little but we were still able to get five on Monday. Every day after, the fishing picked up and got better and better.

By Wednesday we were back into the double digits.

We are now getting into some real nice silvers, several of them into the teens, in adition to all the chinook we are catching.

Friday was my wife Tesha's birthday so she joined me and my clients Rick & Peggy and Ruth & Gordon.

We had a blast!

Either we were on the phone a lot or the fish were biting all the time but every time we were on the phone it seemed like we were hooking up :eek:
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Technology amazes me. Tesha was floating in my boat in the middle of the Columbia and talking to her brother who is floating around on a ship in the middle of the Persian Gulf. The call only got interupted by the fish a couple of times :grin:

Last year Peggy caught her biggest fish ever at 32 pounds here in Astoria but on Friday she beat that with a 41 pounder!
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Peggy's 41 pound trophy

We finished the day with this catch of keepers.
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Tesha's B-Day party on the water

On Saturday Chris invited her freind Maggie up from L.A. to expereince some NW salmon fishing. She'd never been fishing but you would never have known it.

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Maggie's first fishing trip

As I mentioned above, there are some real nice silvers around, some are as big as some of the chinook.

On this day there was a salmon derby for the Star of the Sea school. Norm decided to enter our boat and he ended up taking the $300 prize for the biggest coho.

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Norm's 14.2 pound winning coho

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The Gear That Gets It Done
I can atribute a lot of my success this season to all the great gear that I've got access to.

First of all I'd like to say how impressed I am with my Tekota Line Counter Reels by Shamano. I picked them up in July from Great American Tackle after hearing some great reports about these reels. I called Gary up and asked him to fill up a couple of them with 65# TUFF Line, before I could get in there and pick them up he had sold them three times to customers who saw them sitting there filled with line.

The drags are strong and smooth, the extra large handle is great for cranking and of course the line counters make it all so easy.

Another cool thing I notices about them was before I made it down here to Astoria I tried them out while doing some anchor fishing for summer steelhead/chinook. When on anchor I could walk them out 60 or 80 feet behind the boat and then after a fish was hooked the rig could be walked right back to the exact spot.

Also new for me this season was an Lawrance X18 color graph/GPS. It's easy to use, the screen shows up well and has great deffinition and the GPS unit is awsome for marking waypoints when fish are hooked while trolling so that the same spot can be worked over again.

This year was the first year I have ran a prop on my boat. Let me tell you, it has cut my fuel bill in half. So nice :dance:

For solid hook-ups I count on my Gamakatsu 5/0 hooks and the 65# Tuff Line. 50# Big Game leader makes sure there are not lost fish to break-offs, great insurence. My Loomis 1084's load up well for the herring bite.

All these things are great tools that make my job easier :dance:


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Fishing in Astoria can be lots of fun but I see lots of people have bad experiences too.

Bouy 10 is no place for the weak of heart of inexperienced. You need patience, nerves of steel and a strong stomach to fish <font color="red"> "The Line" </font>

I don't know why but there always has to be one boat that decides to troll across and in front of everyone or against every one else when there are 200 boats holding in one direction into the current :hoboy:

Just look around and see what others are doing. If your boat wont do the same things move to a less crowded area.

Remember "when in Rome" and do what every one else is doing. And use the same gear as others do. Just because you caught fish on a 4 oz banana sinker and herring 20 years ago or out in the ocean don't use it here. Use large divers so that you can keep your stuff under your boat and out of other peoples.

Also, when you do have a fish on in a crowed make sure you use your boat to your advantage and stay on top of the fish so as to help control it from getting tangled in others lines and loosing it. What I like to do is try and put my boat between the fish and other boats if I can.

The boat ramps are another potential for bad experiences. A person may find themselves yelled at if they forget to turn off their head lights. There isn't a morning that goes by that I don't see this happen.

There's another few weeks left for this season so go get 'em and have a good time, but be responsible so other can enjoy themselves too.

[David Johnson]

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The start of a great day

When the day starts out with a sunrise like this, nothing else can go wrong. This pic doesn't even do justice to the painted sky we had.

Morning started with an early wake-up call and we were on the water as the sun slid over the distant mountains and the Columbia River.

This trip my guests were Dr. Morgan and his friend Mario. The other two seats were empty on account of a cancelation.

I'm glad Morgan brought along some Zingers. I've never fished with them on the Columbia before you can bet I will now.

For the first hour we trolled our way down river with not one interuption, but at 7:20 Mario's rod did a dance to the water. In expectation of a good day, the little chinook was released in hopes of a bigger prize. Before I could get Mario's hooks baited again Morgan's rod folded over, "Fish On!"

For over an hour we could never get all three rods in the water without a fish on. We soon broke the double digits of fish to the boat. And they were all chinook except one un-clipped coho that was in the low teens!

15 fish for two guys and back at the dock by 11, what a morning :dance:

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The end of a great day, two of Morgan and Mario's 15 fish day.

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We have had some outstanding trips, the weather has gotten better and the fish have been very good to us. 44 salmon in the last four trips :yay: Double digits and limits have been the norm.

Lots of chinook are still moving into the Columbia and now the coho are coming in too. Some the which are very nice and in the teens.
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Look at these fatty pig coho :dance:

[David Johnson]

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With so many satisfied customers and fun filled days, my '04 Astoria season filled up earlier this week. This fishery is an excelent place for beginers, families, and business clients as pretty much every one gets in on the action.

I had many families and groups like this, many from out of state, come out and go home smiling.

It truly is a world class fishery. In about three weeks we caught hundreds of salmon, three out of four being chinook.

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A lot of my regular clients who fish with me in Astoria have already booked their same date again next year.

If you are interested in booking next year e-mail me. I will be making a list of people who are interested in this season for '05.

fishermand@aol.com