May Springers

[Amerman]

The post By Gotfish ( here (http://www.ifish.net/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=847909&page=3&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1) ) made me start thinking about how everone has been saying this springer season sucked. To me it was a lot like the winter steelhead season. It started off slow or people believed it was slow and most people quit fishing leaving those of us still fishing with good fishing.

I spent May on the Willamette and its tribs and had good fishing all month. I think I fished all but one of the tribs and had limit days on all that we fished.

Here are a couple shots from the month.
http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380fish1.jpg
We had a lot of wet cold days in May.

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380f2.jpg
Grant and I even had an afternoon we got to go together as he showed me a river new to me. It's fun to fish new water, be the only boat, and limit in 3 hours.

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380f4.jpg
Nothing like catching limits of springers in your T-shirt.
http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380fish3.jpg

This year we saw lots of native fish. I don't know if there were more nates than usual this year, but I think their was a higher percentage of them. Their numbers stayed about the same while the hatchery numbers were well off.

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380F7.jpg
One of 5 nates this day.

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380F8.jpg
Sun, T-shirt, Chrome and my Northriver (priceless)

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380F5.JPG
2 (above and below) of the 3 big nates we got this day (photo's by GunRodBow thanks Bruce)
http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/380F6.JPG