Posted by: plugs
2017 Looking Back on the year - 12/14/17 03:38 AM
I thought with the New Year just a couple weeks away it being to cold for my old bones to deal with such low numbers of steelhead here in the tribs yet I'd just put away the boat till springer time and thought I'm probably not the only one.
I also thought about us needing a place to share our success stories we had and things we may have learned through the 2017 year.
So 1 thing I learned in 2017 is that maybe color has a little more to do with our offerings than I had previously believed. Case in point fishing some of our absolutely killer Kwikfish anchored in the same exact spot day after day that killer Blue Magoo or Twisted Sister might hook you up for days on end then out of nowhere you can't but a bite all day till you change colors.
I also learned taking a 16ft boat out at Astoria may not be the smartest thing you can do but it is doable. Also it's really a good idea to have your butt back at the ramp BEFORE it flips to the outgoing.
Last thing I learned is trust your electronics no matter how stupid you think it's just acting up. One area we do a lot of our trolling is 46 F.O.W. and there was like 3 days we were fishing and just scratching out 1 or 2 fish a day targeting the fish showing on the graph at 3 ft. off the bottom but kept marking at 5-10 ft. what I thought was just surface clutter floating down. So I'm bringing in a fish I dredged up off the bottom and my buddy hasn't got his line all the way in yet and I need him to net my fish and he just stops reeling grabs the net swings her aboard and we hear his rod just ripping line off the reel just as a fish goes airborne 10 ft. behind the boat. We get his fish in the boat and now there lays 2 fish that need bleed and put in the box which I'm going to do so told him to get the rods back out while I'm doing that. So I have my back to him and not watching and I have the 1st fish bled and putting it on ice and I hear his rod holder closing around the rod and I start to take his fish out of the 2nd net and bonk it and about the time I'm running my knife through the gills he's saying "HERE TAKE THIS" handing me my rod and his is just flat pinned over the side. I reel my rod back in set it aside and after a 15 minute tooth and toenail fight we net his fish. I says how deep were you? he said he only had 13 on the counter. I then say ok you take care of that one I'm getting back out. Now I'm standing there stripping out line watching my counter about the split second I'm gonna flip the handle at 13 ft. I get hit like a ton of bricks with the reel still in free spool and somehow got away without a birds nest and got that one in too.
So there's a couple of success stories and things we learned in 2017
Here's a quick video of myself and a couple of my fishing buddies summing up our year fishing SW WA 2017
My 2017 fishing season
I also thought about us needing a place to share our success stories we had and things we may have learned through the 2017 year.
So 1 thing I learned in 2017 is that maybe color has a little more to do with our offerings than I had previously believed. Case in point fishing some of our absolutely killer Kwikfish anchored in the same exact spot day after day that killer Blue Magoo or Twisted Sister might hook you up for days on end then out of nowhere you can't but a bite all day till you change colors.
I also learned taking a 16ft boat out at Astoria may not be the smartest thing you can do but it is doable. Also it's really a good idea to have your butt back at the ramp BEFORE it flips to the outgoing.
Last thing I learned is trust your electronics no matter how stupid you think it's just acting up. One area we do a lot of our trolling is 46 F.O.W. and there was like 3 days we were fishing and just scratching out 1 or 2 fish a day targeting the fish showing on the graph at 3 ft. off the bottom but kept marking at 5-10 ft. what I thought was just surface clutter floating down. So I'm bringing in a fish I dredged up off the bottom and my buddy hasn't got his line all the way in yet and I need him to net my fish and he just stops reeling grabs the net swings her aboard and we hear his rod just ripping line off the reel just as a fish goes airborne 10 ft. behind the boat. We get his fish in the boat and now there lays 2 fish that need bleed and put in the box which I'm going to do so told him to get the rods back out while I'm doing that. So I have my back to him and not watching and I have the 1st fish bled and putting it on ice and I hear his rod holder closing around the rod and I start to take his fish out of the 2nd net and bonk it and about the time I'm running my knife through the gills he's saying "HERE TAKE THIS" handing me my rod and his is just flat pinned over the side. I reel my rod back in set it aside and after a 15 minute tooth and toenail fight we net his fish. I says how deep were you? he said he only had 13 on the counter. I then say ok you take care of that one I'm getting back out. Now I'm standing there stripping out line watching my counter about the split second I'm gonna flip the handle at 13 ft. I get hit like a ton of bricks with the reel still in free spool and somehow got away without a birds nest and got that one in too.
So there's a couple of success stories and things we learned in 2017
Here's a quick video of myself and a couple of my fishing buddies summing up our year fishing SW WA 2017
My 2017 fishing season
