Columbia observations

[David Johnson]

I've been running a few trips for salmon and steelhead on the Columbia lately and here's a few of my observations......

1) The fish seemed to come through in waves both near shore and out deep. While fishing today me and one other guide boat hooked around 20 fish between the two of us plus we got probably close to that many line bumps and the group of bank anglers below us caught about five or six.

When the bankies were catching fish we were pretty quiet, no line bumps, strikes or fish on. (the fish were moving close to shore) and when we were getting action I never saw any one on the bank hook anything. (the fish were moveing out deeper)

The waves of fish seemed to alternate back and forth between close to shore and farther out and it didn't seem to matter what time of day it was.

2) Long leaders, short leaders, long drop lines, short drop lines, scent or no scent.....it didn't seem to matter as long as you had a spinner with good action.

3) Color. I've caught them on a whole host of colors, the fished would go on and off the bite of a certin color throughout the day.

4) 2/3 of the fish we are catching are steelhead, the others are chinook. Most of the steelhead have been unclipped and most of the salmon have been clipped. Today we landed six of the ten fish we hooked and four were steelhead and two were salmon. We got to keep one of each.

5) The spinners that were the hottest (caught the most fish) also had more line bumps than the others. They were not only getting more bites but more fish were swimming near/past them. They had the best "vibes".

6) As far as lure selection goes if you have confidence in it and the conditions are correct for using it go for it. I have hooked or know of fish that have been hooked lately on the Columbia on every thing including spinners, Hot Shots, Kwikfish w/ bait wraps, herring, sand shrimp, prawn spinners, spin glo's and small red flatfish.

Note: If you are using anything with bait on it don't be serprised if you hook into a sturgeon, especially and oversize.

7) and lastly, the wind sucks........

There are 1000's of chromers moving up river right now so get out there and enjoy....

[ 07-15-2002, 07:57 PM: Message edited by: David Johnson ]