Am I the only one beginning to panic on the springers? I realize there is alot more water this year and temps are lower but geez it's almost April now and we still aren't seeing any fish. Yesterday 21 springers went over Bonneville, the same day last year 1,807 went over!! If you look at the year before that things were pretty slow until the first of April...lets hope that will be the scenaria for this year as well.

RM

Boss, I've hit fish every trip for the past month. Patience, grasshopper, they'll be there. They already are there. Get the boat loaded. Go. Now.

Riverman,

Actually the Columbia is low for this time of year(12 ft. at Bonniville) and the Willamette is very low. As far as numbers of fish go I would tend to agree with you. I don't think there's the numbers there should be for this time of year. There are fish being caught just not in big numbers. Now that the nets are out they should show soon. Keep you fingers crossed and pray for rain.

Fished the St. Helens area hard for three days last weekend. Only saw a handful of fish caught each day out of the hundreds of bank and boat rods. Fortunately my buddy found one each day we were out two hatchery ( 6 and 22 pounds) and one wild (8-10 pounds, released) I never got a bite.

Saw lots of sea lions. One thing that helps to keep the sealions away is when you hook a fish try to become calm as possible and move about slowly on the boat, keep seated if possible, and for god sakes don't wave your net around keep it on the floor till the very last second! The sealions poke there heads up and constantly are looking for the Chinese fire drill and net waving parties that say come eat my fresh springer!

The twenty two pounder was as bright as foil, I'll try to figure out how to get the picture off my PC at home and post it. All fish were hooked on a K-14 kwikie.

Fresh springer on the grill tonight for dinnner!

BD

You are the exception to the rule, my man. I think it is harder than it looks, and you are very, very good at it. The data show that for the week ending 3/28/2004, only 1 out of every 10 rods retained a springer. For the 2003 run of 192,000 upriver springers, for the period April 1-26, the average retention was 1 fish for every 8 rods. Even if you double the run size, that still puts you at 1:4 odds of bringing home a fish.

Sure, you read all these posts about all the springers guys are catching. I know that if I caught one I'd be scrambling for a digital camera so I could post the pictures, but I'd say only a fraction of guys that get skunked will post and say, "I suck. I got skunked. I wish I could fish like SH. But, the weather was real nice" and . At least there aren't 1,000 boats scrambling for the same piece of saltwater .

Oh well, I'll probably still make the 3-hour drive and give it a try, as soon as the Bonneville numbers pick up. I hope the weather is nice :rolleyes: .

Yeah, those figures sound discouraging, but you have to remember that at least half of these boats are folks that fish only occasionally, and to put it charitably, are unskilled. This time of year, the boats that know what they are up to should be banging several fish a day.

I think expereinced fishermen, that put a little thought into how to chase these things, can expect to catch fish pretty reliably. Of course, it only took me twenty years to get experienced...

All you have to do is put a lure that looks good, is running good, that smells good, in front of a fish. Take the problem apart into it's pieces, and these fish are pretty easy to catch.

Hey Hilton, has S__ seen your new tag line your using?

It's all about being in the right place at the right time! Unless your name is Dave Johnson, I find it hard to believe that someone could wack a fish everytime out, unless its later in the season just below Bonny.

Sat in a hogline next to guy last weekend who was no rookie, he was going on his sixth straight day without a single bite! I felt bad for him since we pulled up and had a springer on in the first 10 minutes, then not a bite for the rest of the day. He told me he still had 4 days of fishing to go, now thats dedication.

BD

Fishing springers is a art those that hang in there and pay their dues are putting fish in the boat but even the best have a off day!I personnelly have been fishing the CR for over 20 years and think this year is a normal year. Have had some great days and some not so great days, every year is different last year the fish were way early like 2 weeks early and came in a mad rush and it also slowed down way early wehre years pass you would catch fish all the way thru May. This year I think is a normal year so don't get upset yet! I can remember years fishing the mouth of the Lewis when everybody was allready moved up river and having 10 mfish days all by myself wondering why is no one hear, heed the words of Silver Hilton he knows his sh%t!!!PEACE!!!

Naw, but if she saw it, she'd just hit me just like she did when she heard me say it the first time! She's pretty tolerant.

Multiple days a week, multiple fish. Put the time in and dont leave early like i see a majority do(when slow). Ive caught lots at the tail end of the tide when everyones gone. I finished a tide last month with one boat in sight and surrounded by gillnetters and still got one. Which was one more than the gillnetters got.

I have alerted the media SH....CNN may be interested..Outdoor Life is in....Dave Vedder has been pretty quiet lately but Salmon Trout Steelheader may want to do a cover story...

I can just see the headline on the cover:

"I Never Get Skunked" by SH.....

nothing to it.... :rolleyes:

Grandpa: You are right, I have been pretty silent lately. Travel, deadlines etc. But next week Nick Amato and I are going springer fishing, and I'm liking our chances. We are fishing with Clancy. He landed at least four today.

Our plan is to fish with the great Clancy one day, pick his brain and observe every subtle nuance we can. The the next day we will fish on our ouw and see how much we learned. I will report back.

I released a tiny native today, Prawn spinner...(red beads, gold #5 Frenchie )on anchor.....and keeping track the best we could there were quite a few salmonoidal encounters today. I'll be out most of the day tomorrow and hopefully i'll get a keeper.

Louis F.

Shoot, I get skunked all the time. Last time was march 14. But we hit fish - I just shook them off. I'm just saying these fish aren't particularly hard to catch. They're aggressive, and they're about to be numerous.

It's bonkin' time, boys.

Hey Hilton,

I will be headed down next Friday for several days of fishing...hope to see you anchored up where we met last year. Look for me in the white driftboat again.

RM

Jed, I'll be down there tomorrow afternoon, and sunday and monday. Unless you're talking about the following weekend, in which case I have no clue what my schedule is.

Tear them up. I'll look for you.

I'm heading down there Sunday with Dogfish and 98043. We're going to hit that area across from Cottonwood Island. We'll be on the hook through the tide change then start trolling.

Anyone get the latest STS in the mail yet? It's got an article by the Team Carrot guys from the Ifish board down in Portland. Plus it's got an article by David Johnson. Looks like a pretty good issue for springer information.

SH, you could probably easily write something for Nick. Don't let those Portland guys get all the credit for knowing how to catch fish.

Harley, you guys should look for us. Dogfish knows where. I'll be there well before daylight to get the line set up right. The other line will also likely be pretty good as well. The pack below Lured In's line didn't do very well last week, except on the very inside, like 30 yards offshore. I expect to see fish more spread around this weekend.

Hilton,

I will be over next Friday night and will start fishing on Saturday. We will probably stick around until Tuesday, maybe longer if the fish are biting. I will check with you early next week to see how things are going.

RM

Hey Riverman, make sure you let Web and I know how you do. We are planning on going down the week of April 12th. What day do you plan on leaving? Looks like the numbers are starting to pick up with a couple 50 days.

If you need a tune up before you go, you might consider making a day trip to the WR. Fishing was incredible last week in the canyon, but slowed a bit since the rive dropped the past few days. Give me a shout if you want to come over sunday.

AC

If you're a Columbia springer fisherman, and you're sort of a computer-geek, then here is the ultimate web site for you:

http://www.cqs.washington.edu/dart/adultpass.html

Kind of fun graphing out the past springer runs, and the current springer run to see where we are (theoretically) in the run.

Hey, I can't fish right now, so I gotta dream!

Nympher,

Hey feel free to phone me on the water at any time...Web has my cell #. We will be out starting Saturday and will probably stay at least until Tuesday, maybe longer.

RM

Fished yesterday's PM outgoing, 2 fish, this morning's outgoing, one fish. They're out there.

I fished the Columbia on Saturday's and Sunday's outgiong tides. We hit a total of 4 fish, and landed 2, and one landed us on Saturday. Sunday we hit one, and landed none.

This was just downstream of the 205 bridge.

The big story was of a hook up my bother had. His rod just bowed out of sight at one point, in contrast to the bouncing when a 'nookie hits.

He grabs the rod, and I try to clear my line from the water. When I pull back my 30# Trilene snaps with a pop! I run up front to release the anchor, and I hear POP!, then "Forget it" It got away!

We deconstructed the situation, as we looked at my brother's reel that was holding 150 yards of 30#, and we saw the arbor of his Penn 209. No line was left.

The neighbors on the line offered it must have been a log, but the log went cross current to the middle of the channel.

We can only figure that some giant sturgeon must have nabbed our Kwikfish, and bolted when the hooks bit in.

In 30 seconds we lost 2 kwikfish K-15s, 8 ounces of lead, and 150 yards of line.

Satuday was an interesting day on the river.

You probably had a sea lion on the end of the line

No sea lions, or harbor seals were seen within a 1/4 mile of where we were.

Been there, discussed that. Sturgeon it remains in the eyes of all witnesses.

Rob