Just about everyone but bass only fishermen know about the 1/3 million springers coming up the Columbia this year. Already there has been 18,000 over Bonneville Dam!!! This early too! ...

Wind and Drano are already fishing well, and should be hot very soon. Just troll some scented flame red or orange Mag Warts about 50' behind your boat and hold on! Use 15 or 20 lb. line to get your fish out of other crowded lines. Or try trolling some whole red pack sized herring behind a 00 dodger or some plugcut green pack size. And curing up some whole cooked prawns from the seafood store in your saved redish egg cure juice for trolling is deadly there, and everywhere!! Put about a 2" wire into the cured prawn to lengthen them and have just a very slight curve to them. Use a double hook rig (4/0 lower and 3/0 upper - super sticky sharp!) with a bead and very small winged bobber above on the leader (such as a small hot pink Spin N Glo with chrome mylar wings or other productive bobber/color). You can hook these on the common way with the head down and the tail half-hitched, OR better is to go against the norm and hook them on head upstream. First cut a small notch on top of the head just behind the eyes for half-hitching the head snug to the hookeye or lower leader (if the prawn has a good beak uyou can use that to hitch instead - this is important for a great looking rolling action while trolled!). The upper hook is just put right into the face and curled out under the front legs (cut the legs to half length for this rigup - leave the tail section filia full length). Curl the back hook into and out of the underside tail section. You can adjust the curve/action with the wire or with a slider upper hook adjustment if you use those. Use about a 55" leader and 28" lead dropper. Try some with a size 4 or 5 rainbow spinner blade (blade/clevis/beads on spinner wire with barrel swivels at both ends for this) at mid-leader for a hookless attractor. Watch your depth finder for deeper pockets and areas to drop you bait down into as you troll thru them. You can also troll them behind a Magnum Hot N tot diver in the medium to shallower areas and that is really productive. This cured prawn roll is DEADLY for springers up there and on down the Columbia and on the Willamette (anchorup or backtroll the stronger outgoing tide currents). Fish on! ...

I have it from reliable sources that unlike what I thought would happen in this drought lowered water flow, a lot of fish are being caught in close in 12' to 17' of water as in normal years. I still think trying out there in the 25' water depths is a very good prospect though, especially on bright sunny days. On the slacker incoming tide current also try trolling long distances downstream. Have some rigs lead ticking bottom and some up off bottom a ways, because they don't hug bottom quite as much on the incoming as they do on the outgoing tides. Herring trollers are doing well with those small chrome "Fish Flash" attractors at mid-leader in the lower river. And Kwikfish are hammering fish; bait wrapped or justscented. The K-14 has been the 'go to' size, but in slower current try the K-15. And the K-12 is NOT to small for these springers, they love them! In the faster water from the Bonneville deadline on down to around Beacon rock, backtrolled K-15s and Mag Warts are nailing a lot of fish. At stores soon will be the new K-13 size, and it's built with a new construction technique. Early results are great. Heck, they are doing well with anything that normally works, all up and down the lower Columbia! Get out there now - before the dam NMFS tries to unfairly cut down our opportunity because of all the hatchery fish sportsmen are taking! I guess so the Indians can gillnet more springer nates, eh? Makes sense - NOT. Good luck out there.

[ 04-03-2001: Message edited by: RT ]