I’ve been very lucky for the past week or so and done really well salmon fishing on the Columbia River. I’ve gone fishing six times and caught salmon every time. That has to be the best start of the salmon season, or any other fishing season, I’ve ever had. It’s not like the fish are jumping in the boat either. Most of the days I only caught one salmon and felt super lucky to do that because the fishing was slow and only a few fish were caught. One nice salmon is worth a morning’s hard fishing to get it, even if it is a wild salmon and you release it. I never keep wild salmon, even if you can, kind of “fishing karma” I guess.
You only have to go salmon(or steelhead) fishing a few times to realize the luck I’ve had, but a lucky streak like that can’t go on all season. My time will be coming up when I don’t catch anything and get to watch the guy ten yards away catch one fish after another. It’s been a great week of kayak fishing for salmon on the Columbia River.
A lot of the action is early in the morning so the video footage is limited, but at this time of the season, you just want to get out there and catch fish. There’s no doubt there are going to be a lot more fishermen here pretty quickly. As fisheries close to the west because the catch limits have been met, those fishermen will be headed east and it could get ugly on weekends. One of the things that always stuck with me from surfing was that when the surf was good, you went surfing because the waves may be gone tomorrow. Get while the gettin’s good I reckon.
I use pretty light fishing gear, which you can do in a kayak because if you catch a big fish, you can let it tow you around until it gets tired. When I’m anchored, it’s more of a challenge.
It was a really good day today. I caught three Chinook salmon and had a couple heartbreakers, including one that has to go into the “one that got away” archives. I was tossing a spinner and got a solid hit. When I set the hook, the fish took off on a twenty yard run towards the main channel. Problem is, there was a boat with a couple guys fishing ten yards away and the fish swam right through their lines. I had to release the bail on my reel to let the other fisherman untangle the lines and even though he untangled the lines very quickly, the fish had just about spooled me. I started to take back some line, but with my light gear, it’s hard to get a big fish from a long way off and I lost it. Check in at Heartbreak Hotel, right? Sure, it’s a bummer, but what you do is throw it back out there. Here’s a couple that didn’t get away
A big one got away, but you get over it if you keep fishing. Just after sunrise, another big hit and after a great battle, the big Chinook salmon was at the boat
Turns out this salmon was having a lucky day, too. I already had two Chinook salmon on the stringer, I think that’s all you can keep, I don’t know for sure. There are so many regulations and they change all the time, it’s hard to keep track. Anyway, I had what I think is the daily limit for Chinook salmon, so I unhooked this fish and let it go. Got a cool video though.
So thankful for this past week of fishing. Taking the weekend off to avoid the crowds, but I could use a rest day. Kayak fishing around here is like CrossFit, only it’s CrossFish; full body workout. Beers, fresh salmon tonight and sleeping in tomorrow; oh yeah!