Here’s my newest Bad Boy video shuffle for your fish addiction fix of the day. I’m really happy with how it turned out. Thanks to BigTone who was in the Man Cave today helping me out with this new movie. Leave a comment if you want, it’s easy!
Nice soundtrack, Huh? Ghost Face, this oughta bring you outta the woodwork…..
FREE Team Salmon hat for anyone that can name the songs in the movie.
My wife has always wanted to do a night fishing trip, so we finally get the opportunity to go and the night just doesn’t go as planned whatsoever. The whole day my wife is so excited, but the weather is just crapping. Passing thunderclouds and wind all day. I told her we’re going no matter what.
My buddy, Johnny is at the lake and giving me the early evening reports of borderline whitecaps, but he’s out there so I’m thinking its doable. We get to the lake about 7pm and its not too bad so we launch the boat. We head to the shallow island since the wind is pushing a little. Before I even drop the trolling motor my wife makes her first cast and hooks up. SWEET! She is happy, the wind died, everything looks great. Then, about five casts into it, the wind shifts, and I see white caps across the lake. Few minutes later the white caps are everywhere. CRAP! So I fire up the big motor and head toward the docks to try to find a spot we can wait it out. Not much better by the docks, and its not letting up. Then Johnny comes cruising in soaking wet from the ride back in. We all head for the docks. I was heading in to pick up my father-in-law anyway, so I tied up to the docks to wait it out. It gets worse…ok, Johnny’s getting of the lake now allong with every other boat, so I decide to pull the boat out too. This sucks!
We get up in the parking lot and decide to bs and wait to see if it dies down. As soon as the sunsets, everything stops. YES!!! Ok, I go to check out my spot light…plug it into the cigarette outlet and it doesn’t work. Then we see smoke coming out of the boat…..OH Sh**!!! Get the extiguisher and in panic mode start ripping everything out of the way to get to the battery area near the motor. Smoke stops…no fire. The power wire on the outlet is fried, but no fire so we got lucky. Good thing that didn’t happen on the water.
Anyway, we decide to launch the boat. I get my lights out to hook up and my transom light doesn’t work….F***! My wife is getting really pissed now. No spare bulbs in the boat either. By this time it’s about 930 and my father-in-law decided to save the day for his daughter and goes and makes a run to wally world for a bulb. We wait. He gets back with a bulb about 950 and we get everything squared away. Father-in-law is now out, since it’s past his bedtime, so it’s me and my wife.
We launch and head out into the darkness. Stop back at the shallow island and fish for about 2 1/2 hours. I really wanted to try all the new baits I got for my b-day but, I grabbed a jig to start and never put it down. They were eating it good. Lost count of the number of fish quickly. The biggest fish was 4lbs. Headed in about 1am and found a citation warning on my window. Apparently my season pass is only good until 10pm. If you stay later you have to pay a camping fee. Whatever. Anyway, it was an adventure.
…this brought to you from an allaroundangler called Eatfish….one of my original contributors here on Allaroundangler……..
How about I translate what I know from this fish tail to tell….There are 2 of them from him to report from recent days… ..not the kind of tail he thought he’d be measuring on his cooler……but he’ll sure take it!
Apparently, he was chasing some Northern Pike Minnows in a local river with a bounty on the fish. The bounty is something that was started back in the early/mid nineties to begin to thin an over-population of these salmon smolt-gorging predators. From memory, I think it’s around 3 bucks a fish with some larger ones paying out more and some ‘tagged’ fish added with a large payout to attract a larger populace of anglers. Anyhow…I’ve heard of people making 30-40K a year…..mostly guys without jobs who own bassboats….. …and got to the point of the day when he felt compelled….a bit hesitant due to his stock of roe…but compelled none-the-less (as magicsoul tells it)..to flip a wad of roe. After all of the typical Pike Minnow baits were ran….he found a steelhead that wanted his roe. What a great problem to have, huh?
And below is a second fish I know far less about…other than the fact the picture is named “gangster steel”, appropriately…..I am equally as stoked to post them both up! Beautiful fish Mr. Rowley! Bravo and cheers!
It’s not every memorial day weekend (halfway through actually) that I can write a post like this one…..but I’m always happy when I can report something like this. Between the four of us (Sal,Magic, Pigstick & me), three different rivers were fished in two days with those numbers on the board you see above. 7 of these 10 were landed which is an above-average ratio for me at least. I contributed a 2 for 3 stat to the group. There’s quite a few highlights from all these stories….because every fish is a story of it’s own. Here’s some tarter sauce for your fish…..
VIDEO HERE!!
..First off, some words from the angler…with Sal Monidae…..”It is turning out to be a good weekend. I was out on the main river–fishing the bubble on one of the Gorge tribs, and was finally rewarded with a really nice surprise –two springers, one about 6-7 lbs and the other about 14-15 lbs. Needless to say “it is about time for me!” I had fished this area on five previous trips and had only had the pleasure of great friends, scenery and observing others reel in fish. Anyway, I hope most of you are getting a chance to enjoy this amazing weathert and least some time fishing your favorite river or lake.
So, I’m real proud to show off my very own Pop’s catch yesterday, as unknowingly; we were each springer fishing a different river and both caught limits of salmon. You taught me righ, Sal. Now here’s your glory! Seriously though, great job!
….”Words”…continued.. It was a great weekend to be on the water. There must have been something going on with the moon or the stars cause those are all very nice fish and good stories behind them. For my trip, the weather was nice and there was only a little breeze which is unusual for the area. We were trolling wiggle warts and I was on a boat with Captain Brian and two of his local guys-Ian, the marlin catching Kiwi and Greg , a local expert at controlling chinook numbers.
This was my fifth trip with Brian and on the others I had not been much of an active participant in the fish catching. I tagged the smaller fish after about 35 minutes of fishing. It was great to see the rod get ripped and better to see the fish in the net. The other fish came about 40 minutes later and was a very good fighter. It started out feeling like a snag, threw in one complete jump, clearing the water by a couple of feet while displaying the wort glued to the side of the mouth, before sliding into the net. We thought we were onto something but only got a couple of whacks with scales left on the hook for the next 3 hours.
My thanks for captain Brian for the trip and Ian for fish tested wiggle wart
NEXT>>>>>>>
Next up out of our 4 man out (so far) I present to you the drift-fisherman-extraordinaire….Mr. Magicsoul!! Brent is a legitimate contestant for “THE BEAST AWARD” which I should be announcing by Wednesday….once I get all the reports and pics. Bravo, Magic man, Bravo! You’ve gotta tell these readers about that fight!! Was that a “triple-lindy” back flip that fish did or what it more of a summer salt from a gymnast? Either way, wish I would’ve been there for video. Great you could get me these fantastic pictures of this beautiful fish!
Those are awesome.
NOW, let’s move on over to Pigstick and I who fished together Friday night…started the weekend out the right way…..Although Pig beat me out onto the water by a couple hours, luckily for documenting purposes, he didn’t get anything until I got there…I might have had to show him which rock to stand on………
This fish of Chris’ was a blast to watch him fight. I was able to grab some video of this fight before I had to abandon the camera for the net. The further that steelhead took him down, the more he buckled down on it. I slid down a little hill to a boulder where he lifted the fish repeatedly in between it’s runs until I could swoop down with the eagle grip…I mean with the salmon net.
I had run straight home from working a nine hour day that started at 445 that morning…..grabbed some sodium sulfate roe that I had thawed the night before…and ran out the door. I took four rods down to the river in the blazing spring heat of the afternoon…and fish ‘em under a float. I’m basically half-way drift fishing under a float and half way swinging. In low light, the bobber doesn’t hurt a thing and I’ve caught both salmon and steelhead both ways. Here’s a couple little salmon (27 and 30inches) that couldn’t resist either method. I also lost a nice summer toad. That fish caught me sleeping.
I kept the first little guy and he gave us these fillets with which had the family over for fresh fish BBQ…
Make sure to watch the video located at the top of this post. Cheers and good luck out there to you all. Send me your “THE BEAST” contestant fish pics for a Team Salmon hat after the season ends.
A big misconception among many river anglers is that when the water is UP, such as the conditions we have this time of year in the northwest (this year especially) you must go to larger drift and/or bobber baits in order to find success. This is true with Salmon most of the time, but not the case with steelhead. I’ve written other articles about ‘clear rises’ and ‘fishing at your feet’…….well this tip is just as important if you want to have 20 plus fish seasons or more (like magic and I are having) out there on your favorite steelhead rivers.
Here’s an example of a HIGH water yarn ball…..tipped with an EZ Egg for chewyness factor…
In my experience, a steelhead will almost always prefer to bite something smaller if they can see it. Where this rule wouldn’t apply to river fishing? Answer: boat or bank anglers fishing the larger rivers, like the CR for example, will typically use large presentations. Mostly because these are ‘plunking’ presentations. Other than that, for all other freshwater steelhead applications….stay small.
Now, staying small doesn’t mean to ‘go light’ by any means. Here’s another mistake so many anglers make. They think “Well, I’ve gone small …..so I’d better run the amount of lead that looks right for the size of bait/rig on the end of my line.” Wrong. This isn’t anything new to some of you, but it’s a good reminder for all of us……IN HIGH WATER, YOUR STRIKE ZONES ARE SHORTENED AND IN MOST CASES EXTENDED OR DEEPENED….so you have a much higher chance of missing it all together without knowing it.
What is the key in these conditions? GET DOWN QUICK. Most of you would balk at casting something like I do in high water. It’s a bit of an artillery. There’s lot’s of moving parts and pieces to make float rigs, mainly because you are trying to accomplish so many different things at once. The most important feature of this whole rig has to be the lead. Whether you are partial to running terminal and leader lead, or just leader lead (either one will work as long as your heavy enough) make sure you KNOW exactly where your intended strike zone is for the water you are fishing at that moment. Keep in mind that that strikezone could change with a step up or down river. So take time before each cast to make sure you look at the following factors:
If you’re running a multi-colored yarn ball, make sure to trim it up. Steelhead don’t like a stringy yarn ball. If you’re running a pink plastic, make sure it falls true, and doesn’t spin. Threading it is really the only way to make sure this won’t happen.
Also, once the water gets more than about 3 feet of visibility…go to the yarn balls…….BUT “don’t go too large.”
Also, consider these suggestions:
1) Identify your strike zone
2) Rig enough lead to get down quick, but not too much to get hung up often…once in a while is okay…
3) Tweak you casts, bobber-stop depths, etc….(around each strike zone you’ve identified) in order to make sure you are targeting all the different depths.
4) Keep your leaders short: Since you are pegging your leader with LARGE split shot (#1 or #2) a longer leader will only create trouble in the form of tangles and snafus…and is not necessary. Remember, high water gives fish cover and makes them feel protected. Consider this as well as the fact that these fish need to conserve their energy. Fish close to the bank…or fish water where an uneven bottom has given them some relief from the higher flows. Look for these areas and work them hard at many different depths.
Our very good friend & #1 out of area contributor…Bobby D..
I just got back from 3 days of unbelievable fishing on Lake Powell. I went down there to fish two tournaments with our local club Southern Utah Bass Anglers. My partner and I for the Saturday tournament shared a hotel room and expenses, so we left at 3am on Friday to get to the lake at 6am for some prefishing. We launched the boat soon as we got there and ran pretty far uplake through the cut to see what we could find and to form a plan for Saturday. Basically everywhere we went we caught fish. Mostly smallmouth bass with some largemouth mixed in. After getting back to the marina around 4pm we called it a day and heading for our hotel room.
On Saturday we decided that since the fishing was great everywhere, we would stay close in Wahweep and fish hard. It paid off too. We caught too many fish to count, but the trick was to find the largemouth, which we finally did later in the day. Ended up culling out an early sack of smallies for a decent sack of largemouth. Unfortunately we just couldn’t land our “kicker fish”. I had a good 3-4 lb largie on and was getting him to the boat when it took a nose dive into a little twig of a tree and wrapped itself around and then as I tried to free it, it took another dive and snapped me off and took my favorite spinner bait with it. My partner also lost a good fish later on a jig. We ended up finishing in 2nd place, just 2lbs out of a winning sack.
My highlight of Saturday was catching a nice striper with a rattle trap. This was the first time I caught one of these, so I was pretty stoked. On Sunday, I had a different partner and we did good, but the fishing was a little slower and was couldn’t find the bigger largemouth. We finished in 3rd place with a nice sack of smallies. Another first for me on Sunday was catching a walleye. It was early morning and I was tossing around a jerkbait and I had it almost to the side of the boat when the walleye came out from the depths to dig his teeth into my lure. Pretty cool to see the whole thing happen.
This was a trip of a lifetime and Lake Powell is a beautiful place. My only regret was not taking more pictures of the many fish I caught. I was just too busy catching to pause for pictures, but I did get a nice shot of that striper….
NOOKSLAYER NOT ON A FLYROD….banging steel. It’s beautiful like a song bird in the morning at camp. Or something like that…..you can see it chroming out on film. Great job on the filming by BB….
8 steelhead weekend
I raced out of the office at 2pm sharp on Friday and shot across town to my house where Team Salmon was already waiting. A mad scramble to pack a bag (for some reason getting up at 3:45 every day isn’t conducive to schedule in packing time..) and we were a two car caravan down the road. Sal Monidae and Big Burge would accompany me on this evening fish….with a nice early start planned for Saturday.
With the water so high everywhere, there were hardly any people out on the rivers. Either day. It was great. This fish were pretty much right where you knew they’d be with record high flows for the date in question on many rivers and streams: At the bank. I did end up hooking two fish in the middle of a run…but that’s because I knew there was a gravel bar that fingered up….otherwise the three others I got into were at my feet. Here’s a picture below of the fish that was small enough for me to land in that high flow; four others were not. Big Burge went 1 for 1 with a nice little Native released as well. That kid has four steelhead and salmon in the last six weeks. Kudos.
Here’s me on Friday night with a nice little native…
That night we had another TS member roll into our camps motel. This was most excellent that he made the drive after a long week and even with his wife’s blessings. You guys know who you are! Thanks for encouraging Nook to make the trip. Nook and I were up until midnight tying rigs and rigging rods while Big Burge pre-threaded plastics on the comforter of the bed. At 4am the next morning, the curtain’s over the window looked something like this:
Float rods o’plenty….
The three of us lost Sal the night before to a forthcoming Saturday morning meeting he could not miss….but ICE made the solo run and filled his spot. Four rods in the water, for the most part, yielded us 8 fish hooked in the two day trip. Now enjoy the real fruits of our labor with this week’s ALLAROUNDANGLER VIDEO DIARY. This is where the real story is:
ALLAROUNDANGLER.COM PRESENTS….’THE BEAST‘ AWARD..PUBLISHED WEEKLY IF CATCHES PERMIT!
Not this kind of beast……
What is “The Beast“, you ask? Let me explain:
I’ve started doing something called “The Beast“, here on Allaroundangler. What do you need to do to be profiled with your very own BEAST??…
1) Catch a fish that’s bigger than an average fish of it’s species. It doesn’t have to actually be a sea monster like you see above, but I do want big oinkers only.
2) If you have a log in and password, you can even post your own pics, if not, just email to ‘info@allaroundangler.com’ and I will post for you. Please include a short story or some briefs words about your catch in your email to me.
3) Send an email to everyone you know to look at your fish on the website and make a comment. At the end of each season, a winning “Beast” will be awarded and a Team Salmon hat will be given to the winner.
4) The final winner will be the allaroundangler with the most comments on their Beast post…..so send the link along!
All other fish will be posted, just not given The Beast award.
5) Finally, there can only be one Beast per week….and I am the only judge. Hey, no one said this blog was a democracy.
Without further Ado…..Here is this week’s THE BEAST AWARD……THIS IS ROGUE RIVER KIMO with the award.
words from the angler….”Got lucky with this one - 25.3 lbs just up river from our cabin. Neighbor got a 16 pounder as well. This makes 18 keepers in the boat for the season!!” Rogue River Kimo
Previous “Beasties” of the year include: Jedeye’s 26lb spring chinook on March 4th, my 16lb nickel late winter buck last month on April 3rd and Big Burge’s 33 inch SUMMER steelhead taken last weekend. There’s been a lot of other beautiful fish taken this year, but these are “The Beasts” to date.
You’ve probably read about these other trophies I’ve mentioned above….especially if you are a ‘Power User’ here on Allaroundangler. But if you have not see the other beasts….simply choose the dates I’ve listed the fish were caught on…using the calendar search option. Just hover your mouse over the calendar and choose the day once you have selected the month you wish to browse.
Sports anglers will be looking at some changes in four tributaries of the Columbia River for spring chinook in the coming days.
First the good news is state Fish and Wildlife reports that so far, more jack spring chinook are being counted at Bonneville Dam since at least 1976 with the exception of the year 2000.
With that sport catches of jack spring chinook has recently increased in both the Wind River and Drano Lake.
Thus, Wind River anglers may keep up to six salmon daily from May 11 to June 30. Of those up to two may be adult salmon or hatchery steelhead or one of each.
The area where the boost in catch limits take place are from the Wind River mouth (boundary line markers) to 400 feet below Shipherd Falls; the Wind River from 100 feet above Shipherd Falls to 400 feet below the coffer dam; and the Wind River from 100 feet above the coffer dam to 800 yards downstream of Carson National Fish Hatchery.
Other rules in the Wind are that anglers must release wild steelhead and all trout other than steelhead, and release wild chinook downstream from Shipherd Falls.
The same goes for Drano Lake where anglers may keep up to six salmon daily from May 11 to June 30. Of those up to two may be hatchery adult salmon or hatchery steelhead or one of each. Release wild chinook and wild steelhead. Release all trout other than steelhead.
This includes all of Drano Lake downstream of markers on point of land below and across from Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery and upstream of the Hwy. 14 Bridge.
Anglers are reminded that fishing is closed in Drano Lake every Wednesday, plus there will be two Wednesday closures in June for the Yakama tribal fisheries.
On a down note, anglers in the Lewis and Kalama rivers must release all spring chinook beginning May 11 through July 31.
Only 2,200 adult spring chinook were forecasted to return to the Lewis system this year. So far, only a few dozen hatchery adult spring chinook have entered the traps on the Lewis. The hatchery escapement goal is 1,250. Based upon recent year return timing, the goal may not be met even with a reduced daily limit.
Only 900 adult spring chinook were forecasted to return to the Kalama River this year.
Through May 6, just two hatchery adult spring chinook had returned to the salmon hatchery. The hatchery brood stock goal is 500 fish. Based upon recent year return timing, the goal may not be met even with a reduced daily limit.
The Lower Kalama, and the Lewis River mainstem and North Fork Lewis remain open for hatchery steelhead.
Creel sampling surveys on both rivers have shown light catches and no evidence of large numbers of fish holding in the river. Hatchery returns will continue to be closely monitored.
Original article posted on May 9th in the Seattle Times…
“Struck Silver”, is actually the name of a famous Coho Salmon drawing by artist Jeanne Warren….of which I own a limited print (a gift from legacy Team Salmon member; Big Jimmy Kennedy)….but I figured for a day and a fish as fantastic as this on, Jeanne wouldn’t be too upset.
This trip would feature an appearance from the said, Big Jim, and would mark the first time in a year I’ve been on a river with him. I’d like to think he brought the Joo Joo that gave us the second biggest hatchery fish I’ve seen landed this season…..but I think it was more due to the fact that Big Burge is, what you call; dialed in. I’ve watched this guy develop into one helluva student out there on the river. He asks a lot of questions and only needs the answer one time. He’s threading his own plastics, tying all his own rigs….and has banged three fish in his last 6 trips. I think only LeBron James is shooting a higher percentage. The kid is fishy and it’s cool to watch.
On this day we had a bunch of our ‘circa ‘95 Situk river-born’ multi-colored yarn balls…as well as three different kinds of pink plastic worms. The secret to Burge’s success wasn’t only the awesome plastic pink plastic (hand poured by Die Hard Custom Baits in Utah….Bobby Didier)..no the success was due equally as much to the over-sized cannon ball split shots that Big Jim brought along with him. No big shot would have = no huge hatchery steelhead.
…plastics hand poured by Die Hard Custom Baits….link to themHERE
Consider this a valuable tip for any of you float fishermen like us out there……RUN WAY TOO BIG OF SPLIT SHOT….whenever the water is high or the slots you’re trying to drop into are short and hard to access….makes all the difference in the world. When you find that slot where the fish are holding, or moving through, then go to that big shot. And be prepared to make five hundred casts a day. Your strike zones will be quickly passed through..don’t bother fishing out a long drift that bumps you out of your trough. Just reel in and cast again. With the higher water your presentation is going to vary so much, cast by cast, anyway….kind of like a snowflake. No two drifts will be exactly alike.
OTHER NEWS FROM THIS TRIP: Big Burge lost another steelhead and I, h3llcat, also lost a steelhead. Stats would end up being 1 for 3 for the group. We didn’t see any other steelhead hooked and lots of people trying. All of our fish were hooked under the float which were sagging hard from all the lead. All three fish were hooked on pink plastic worms. One on a jig head and two on the threaded leader.
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE BEAST gets taken by Big Burge today..
Big Burge nailed this fish in high, fast water on a Bobby Didier “Hellcat Special” pink worm under a float…Video diary above..got questions or comments? Start a dialogue in the comments section!
