The record numbers of Chinook salmon swimming up the Columbia River and it’s tributaries is making for some unbelievable salmon fishing. Usually, this time of year, the salmon runs taper off along with the fishing. While there have been a few days that were slower than expected, the salmon fishing is still going strong. We’ve been fishing every day we can looking for that 20-25 pound trophy king salmon.
We’ve been fishing from the riverbank on windy days and weekends, but for the past few days the wind has been mostly calm so we’ve been out on the kayak. Trolling is one of the best ways to go after migrating salmon, a kayak is ideal for trolling at salmon speeds. In the first couple trips, I lost a big salmon at the boat trying to get the lip gripper in the fish’s mouth, I don’t carry a large landing net needed for salmon so there’s always a chance you’ll lose a fish or two trying to get it into the kayak. Too bad it happened with the largest fish of the season so far. Another fish snapped my 17 lb. fluorocarbon line, so it was probably a pretty good size fish as well. The last time out I managed to get a fish in the boat; the first salmon landed in the kayak.
Salmon fishing is pretty intense. You have to have your line in the water before sunrise and fish all day long. When you are trolling, you must cover as much water as you can to get your lure in front of a salmon. It’s getting colder, especially in the early morning and getting a kayak in the river either means a long paddle across the Columbia River or hauling the kayak down steep, rocky riverbanks in the dark. You’re not exactly alone either. Salmon fishing is a big deal around here, fishermen come from all over the Pacific Northwest and beyond to try for a trophy king salmon. The Klickitat River is pretty narrow at the river mouth, where the best fishing is, not even a hundred feet across. Often, there can be fifty boats trolling a small stretch of river with another seventy five boats out on the Columbia River. Throw in people fishing from the bank and it makes for some crowded fishing conditions. You have to pay close attention to what’s going on, especially in a kayak, so you don’t get run over.
Weekends are flat out insane. Weekend warriors, desperate to catch fish often don’t have much respect for other fishermen, which causes problems for everyone so we try to avoid weekends in the kayak as much as possible. This weekend we will be using the mountain bike to get to the more remote sections of the river and fishing from the bank for a couple days.
It looks like the good fishing will continue through next week, so we’ll be out there as often as possible. There may not be a lot of reporting on the blog because a 4:00AM wakeup call, a long day of fishing and getting everything ready to go again the following day does not leave much time for blogging. We will post a detailed report on the WatermanAtWork website when the salmon run is over as well as blog reports whenever we get a chance, so stay tuned.