We decided early on to troll herring from his kayak, and kwikfish from mine. We would run our presentations down river on the incoming tide, holding our positions or moving slowly up river, and float down on the tide change. Several miles and a few hours after we began zig-zagging past willow bar, we decided to turn and head for home. As Jerrol made a slow, wide turn back up river, his line went slack and gave the sturgeon a chance to suck up the herring.
"I think I'm snagged." He said with a lack of enthusiasm. He was able to real on it, so we thought maybe he hooked a piece of driftwood floating in the water column. I asked him; "Do you feel it shaking at all?" He said he thought he did, and I was pretty sure at that point it was a sturgeon, and not a suspended log.
Nice Job Jerrol! His first time fishing the mighty Columbia River from a kayak. I was excited that we caught something, but the salmon still remained elusive. When we landed, we heard from a bank angler that 5 or 6 fish had been caught off willow bar that day. There are a few fish around, but the big numbers have still not shown.
The hog line of power boats remains anchored around davis bar, on the Washington side of kelly point, at the Mouth of the Willamette. There are usually 20 or 30 power boats drifting willow bar, and there are hundreds of power boats fishing any given day between the I-5, and I-205 bridges. From the statistics I have been gathering from various Fish and Game sources, the extremely low catch rate is distributed equally between boat and bank anglers so far. One report stated 12 fish landed for 648 boats below the I-205 bridge last weekend.
I have also been looking at historical data from Bonneville dam. From 1955 to 2008, the peak of the spring salmon run crossing Bonneville occurred generally the first week of May. With 70 some odd miles between Portland and Bonneville, I'm guessing the salmon peak around the Portland area to be about one or two weeks before that. All this would mean that the peak of the run, which the Bonneville data shows can be as many as 10,000 salmon a day, is not until the second and/or third week of April at willow bar.
There is yet another indicator for the peak of the run; When the numbers crossing Bonneville start to hit 2 to 500 per day, the 5 to 10,000 mass should be in the Portland area. So far Bonneville is showing less than 15 spring salmon crossing per day. So the big push still has not arrived, or may not be coming at all! The season below the power lines on hayden island closes April 18th, and that is the soonest possible time that those 10,000 fish days can occur. I have a good feeling from the increase in catches I observed today, that the pod of 2-500 fish just went through Portland. The springers may be late, but I do think they are on their way. I only hope the season is still open when they arrive.
The regulations sure make it tough on a guy. After April 18th I will have no choice but to fish between the I-5 and 205 bridges with 4-500 power boats, which I am not looking forward to. Who knows, I might call it a season at that point and move on to fishing anywhere but the Columbia.
There are fish in the system though. Every day the action seems to improve, however slight, but I still have the unlucky rod. Today I floated past a banky and a power boater that landed natives, and I have not had a strike. I'm beginning to think I might have jinxed myself by talking a big game. I'm just going to put this out into the universe: "I don't mind if I don't catch a fish, I am happy just getting out there, enjoying nature, and sharing good company." If any one knows how to lift a voodoo hex, please let me know.
Combat fishing in an urban area is beginning to wear on me. Between dodging boats, bank anglers, sea planes, commercial vessels, and heckling hillbillies, another realization came to mind; As I floated between two power boats, the one on my left hooked a salmon. As he was fighting the fish, a bank angler started screaming; "There's a sea lion headed for your fish!" I had seen at least one every day I had fished this spot. Just before Jerrol hooked that sturgeon, a 500 pound bull sea lion went huffing and puffing his way up the channel. The thought that a sea lion would charge us didn't even cross our minds when he was playing and releasing the fish, even though we had shared rumored stories of such events earlier. A shiver ran down my spine as I thought of a salmon draped across my front deck enticing a massive sea lion to charge my kayak. I decided I was willing to deal with a sea lion attack, if only I should be so lucky as to catch a fish!
Until next week,
Jason
3 comments:
Nice report, lovely looking sturgeon too :)
I thought you guys were walking on salmon over there, this is an education for me.
Reference the sea lions, you just need to learn to paddle and navigate whilst taking photos of fish on your lap, doesn't sound so difficult !
Rob
Rob-
We are definitely NOT walking on salmon's backs in the lower 48. There are many factors, and many stakeholders, but commercial salmon fishing on the West Coast US was shut down 2 years ago because of population crashes. Historically, the Columbia River alone used to have 150 million returning salmon per year. We are pretty much down to less than 10% of historical pre Anglo-European settlement salmon returns, and the Columbia is down to about 1-3% of the historical run size. The only fish one can keep now are non native hatchery fish, as the natives are classified as endangered on the Federal endangered species list. The East coast is even worse.
Unfortunately, as long as humans keep encroaching on the forests and rivers, the populations will continue to decline.
Part of the reason I decided to get a degree in fishery and wildlife science was to one day, hopefully contribute to the rebuilding of the fisheries in the Pacific Northwest.......So there will be MORE fish to catch!
The collapse of fish stocks around the world is quite shocking to say the least.
For the first time in about 20 years 'near collapse' cod stocks in the North Sea rose by 1%. The response from the UK fisheries department was to increase the commercial cod quota!!, truly stunning.
It's all politics, the UK fishing industry provides very little revenue, in fact I believe that recreational fishing provides far more (over £1 billion). However, as long as there are votes, sorry jobs, to be lost I very much doubt the mindset will change.
It doesn't help being part of the EU and having Spanish & French fishing vessels trawling around the UK coastline. You only have to look at Norway, not part of the EU, managed fish stocks... the result?, a very healthy fish population.
I was watching a series called 'trawlermen' on TV the other week, this state of the art trawler steered its nets onto a shoal of mackerel. Sonar and sensors on the net allowed the net to be postioned perfectly to engulf the shoal, even watch the shoal pass into the net, whilst estimating the size of the haul prior to raising.
What came to the surface?, 500 tonnes of mackerel!!, 25% of what they expected to catch before returning to port, just astonishing figures, quite depressing.
Post a Comment