Columbia River- Oregon April 13-14th

[tufnik]

Nice fish. I've never fished for salmon or used barbless hooks. So, one of these days I hope to do some salmon fishing, with more cooperative weather of course

Thanks for the report.

[ronaultmtd]

Tuf- These fish are a much sought after food fish- very valuable- The released fish was in all probability a hatchery fish that didn't get clipped- its value on the fish market was approximately $300....so, you can see how putting it back might make you a bit sad- but having a cooler full of "springer" King filets brings a big smile to your face- the salmon are very good sporting fish to catch and they are very selective about hitting baits- you can see thousands of fish on the fish finder only to have no strikes and go fishless- they can be exasperating to even the most dedicated fisherman. The weather is the joker in the deck- the season is based on the catch, so if you wait until the weather is perfect, you may have the river closed to fishing when it is nice outside. Dedicated salmon fishermen out here fish during the season- no matter what the weather...like the series "Deadliest Catch"....we were in a great boat, especially designed for the northwest salmon fishing a 23 foot Willie all aluminum welded boat with an inboard V-6 jet drive and a 6 HP Honda 4 cycle trolling motor on a transom mount- The electronic is a Lowrance 7 inch gen 2 chartplotter with three transducers and the structure scan optional unit.

[kevinfry]

I was deckhand out of Depoe Bay, OR when new regs required barbless hooks....took awhile to get used to it. We always used octopus/beak hooks and sizing up 2 sizes seemed to help...of course if using a Quickfish with a treble, that might not be possible.
I sure miss the GREAT Pacific Northwest