The count is in the green zone for about a week now. Anybody having fun with them?
I used to fish them just for the fun of it. Made the mistake of taking a cooler full of them home one time. Never again, but c/r was a kick in the butt.

Yep, June is the peak of the run.
One of the best kid fisheries ever.

It's more fun, IMO, on the Willamette in the softer water.
You can fish out of the rod holder with a diver rig or a lead dropper for the kids.
I like to jig 'em, also with a lead dropper and 1/32 oz jigs with 1" grubs.
You can also drift fish/fly fish for them. Easier to get at them out of a boat, though.
They fight hard enough to teach kids the basics of fish fighting.

They suspend higher off the bottom than salmon or steelhead.
I routinely use a 5' lead line (dropper) and a 5', 4-6# leader.
I look for "1-2 oz water" with about a 15' +/- bottom.
You can catch the schit out of them in heavier water but it's no fun with all the weight required.

don't waste your money on jigs, a tiny corky, red or green bead, or a plain swivel with a hook works every bit as well.

Canadian wonders, light style, work great on droppers.

Shad is the very best Crab Bait in the world!!!! It is just a big Oily Herring. Yah gotta freeze them or else they disintergrate rather quickie in a trap. I used to tie three of them together and freeze. Just the right quantity for the bottom of a pot.

The "Swivel Lure" does work but needs heavier water to perform at its best. Passive baits need to be drifted or dropped into heavier water for best performance.

Grubs kill it in softer water and they're cheap. When the jig method came on scene, it was a paradigm shift in tactics where I fish.
1/32 oz + 1" curly tail grub....no bigger or you won't get bit nearly as much.
They can't resist that quivering tail and then you add a slight jigging motion and it's game on if they're around.
Barely pop it and then put it back.........hold for 5-10 seconds and repeat. Slo-mo backbouncing is all.

Did it once below the damn years and years ago. We were the only white people in sight and the only ones that released them. It was a lot of fun and an odd experience.

Plenty of "white people" fishing on Monday below Bonny. Most or all were Eastern Europeans.

When I did it a few years ago I found that if you are catching 'em up pretty good, in just a bit you'll have a Russian ( or some other eastern European) right there with you with his big cooler...reel it up, swing it over to him, he'll unhook it and toss it in his cooler...

"Thank you, sir!"

Repeat as long as you feel like it. You never even have to touch one once you have your cooler toter on hand.

Fish on...

Todd

On the Willamette, with our gang it's C&R or crab bait.
If one of the boats is collecting crab bait we'll do a "shad toss" over to the out held net.
It's great fun, especially when a n00b gets a hold of the net.

Shad is the best crab bait that I have ever seen. It seems to out fish everything.

Took Drake down once and he was standing with his back to the water between me and the shoreline. I was rigging up while he was watching me. I noticed a large Sturgy working up along the shore rite to within a few feet of him. I calmly said check that fish out and pointed just past his feet. When he relized what he was looking at I thought we might have to go back to the truck for clean undies. I wouldn't drive across the state for it but it should be one of those things ya do at least once.
If someone goes down from the north end I wouldn't mind having a few to vac pac up for bait this fall.