2014 Steelhead season

[Mikej]

Our only salvation is our springer run. They well most likely screw that up before long too.

Well, in my, mostly useless, opinion......Oregon is in the last third or so of screwing up the Willamette springer run completely. I moved to PDX in 1983, about that time there was a guy that landed a 55# springer under the Gladstone Bridge on the Clack. The early component of the Willamette springer run was BIG fish, used to see a "First" catch last of December and usually by the middle of January for sure. 20+ pound fish were the norm and 30+ wasn't uncommon. For YEARS back then they were allowing the gill netters to fish in February. Guess what? That is when the largest of the run came in! You do the math! I don't know what the % of hatchery fish there were at that time, but I gotta guess that those "Hog" early springers were wild fish. You just don't see those fish anymore, well, maybe a hand full, if that, of fish close to 30# each year.The only thing that has put a halt to the early gill netting is the damage they do to the wild steelhead, so they fish later now rather than use up their quota of wild steelhead and have to stop. The early part of the run still has the larger fish, 16#-22# if your lucky, but once you get into the peak of the run it can be as bad as nothing but 12# fish and smaller.

The other thing you'll notice if you fish the Willamette spring run......During the time the smolts are outgoing from the Willamette, the entire Willamette from Clackamette Park is a lake. The mandated spring spill from the Columbia dams has the Willamette backed up, like a lake. The spill on the Columbia to [help] flush smolts to the ocean basically negates any flow on the Willamette. Once the water hits 50+ degrees the small mouth bass get active. So you not only have lack of flow, you also have a predator fish just waking up from the winter doldrums, damned hungry, and needing to feed up in preparation to their spawn. They have also cut back on hatchery plant over the years, and just recently MOVED a good portion of the Willamette hatchery plants to Astoria/Youngs Bay, and some of the "Terminal Fisheries" [places to gill net where they are not likely to get native salmon]. That leave less spring salmon returning to the mouth of the Willamette.

Strike three! The Willamette is CHOKED with fisherman from Meldrum Bar up to the deadline below the falls for a couple of months once the run gets going, late March to mid May or so. The seals/sea lions are at numbers, well seals anyway, that are at record highs. They have lost their fear of man. There was a guy that almost got pulled over the side of his boat when a fur bag took a hold of a salmon that was in his net, before he could get it in the boat! The seals/sea lions congregate in the same areas the fishermen do. I don't fish the area myself, way too many idiots and arses. I've heard that at times seals/sea lions are getting close to half the fish hooked at times. The fur bags have learned to just wait, they don't even need to chase a salmon down, just wait for the fishermen to hook one for them and then steal it. The same kind of thing happens in the hog lines in the Columbia, seals just hangin' out below a line of boats waiting for the commotion of a "Fish On!" to signal a meal is being served. The supposed method to keep a fish from being stolen is to stay in a sitting position, don't hoot or holler, don't show a net, and reel fast as you can before the fur bag can steal you prize. Good times!

I guess there's a strike four too if you consider the "Islands" that have been constructed by The Army Corps of Engineers from dredge spoils, near the mouth of the Columbia, that have thousands of fish eating diving birds nesting on them that weren't there 50 years ago. Of course we are not allowed to mess with the birds, or the fur bags due to the PETA types!

Hope that wasn't too hard to read. I'm just a bit bitter of the way fisheries have gone [away] here in Oregon, while the prices have gone up for everything to do with fishing!

Mike

 

[Caveman Jim]

We all are Mike. It makes no difference what PNW region that, at one time, HAD good runs of big fish or just good numbers of returning adults that are now a pittance of years ago.
It is a major downfall when the Departments who are payed to enhance numbers fall victim of the CF (commercial fishing lobby group) who bribe them!!! Nets kill everything they catch and those resuscitation boxes they are "REQUIRED" to use on every boat are "NOT" being used!!!! Dead fish carcasses are thrown back into the water!!!!

And all the biased studies which are cherry picked to further the agenda of tree huggers and elitist fly fishing snobs. My BP rises every time I think about it and I give WDFW another ranting and raving e-mail, maybe one day it will help.

The only way that the end user groups, whether it be fisherman or gun owners, can make TPTB see the light is to be vocal by corresponding to them with phone calls or e-mails stating, in a positive way, that what they are doing now and in the past is not acceptable. Try and convey that "YOU" are not alone in your frustrations, that friends and family members also feel the same way.
This is key folks if we expect any changes to our legacy as fishermen for our children and grandchildren and their... you get the picture. Let us get busy!!!

 

[U201491]

Yeah that pretty much sums up many of the problems. I have fished for springers since 1954 at 8 yrs old used to walk through Publishers mill every day and down to Black point and cast spinners, elbow to elbow with about 20 other guys.

The fish averaged in the 25 to 35 pond range and an occasional over 40. We could actually catch our 3 fish limit then also.

Then through the days of trolling above the old bridge when the boats were so thick you could literally walk across the river on them there.

All the hog lines were there. The lake line, the sandbar line, the garbage hole.. etc... The one big thing we did have was the hatcheries were in full production then and never wanted for fish.

Also up til the mid to late 70's the only thing I saw resembling a sea lion was one harbor seal that came up to the locks. Then the Sea lions were made an endangered species.
The population grew and they began flooding into the rivers chasing food (salmon) and each year they brought their young back with them, and no one did anything to stop them.
Back in the days of good fishing we used to shoot any sea lion we found in the rivers.
I remember standing on the bridge at pacific city and shooting them in the fall when they chased the fall run up the Nestucca.
They didn't present a problem then. They fed the crabs.

The native fish will never survive to a level to make a viable recovery or viable fishery any longer and if they rely on that then salmon fishing is finished in the PNW.

A hatchery fish is a native fish is a native fish is a hatchery fish.
Genetically they are identical. All were derived from native fish and the difference is the age they are released to the rivers. Clipping a fin does not make them any different, except in the minds of the idiots and just more control for them.

And the hatchery have their damned fin clipped.
It is a cruel joke on fisherman and an eco nut appeaser.

BRING BACK THE HATCHERIES.

As for the Columbia backing up the willy, yes that has happened since the Corps of Engineers took over the control of the Dams on the Columbia a couple years ago and they flush water downstream clear through to July now. Totally screws up the Willy.

We fished the Willy 4 days a week up to June then Moved out to the Columbia and fished day and night 4 days a week til October each year.
Salmon, Steelhead during the day and Pike Minnow at night and slept on the boat
all summer.
The Corps really fouled up fishing on both rivers, but at least we had current on the "C".

Made it hairy fishing in behind the wing dams for the pike minnow at night though until after July.

We watched the gill nets strip mine the river night after night.
They killed a lot of sturgeon also ion the process.
Then they were supposed to be restricted to seine nets from the beaches, and we watched that fiasco.

They still have not gone to it and are still gill netting.

Total and complete mismanagement mostly by eco-brain-deads have slowly destroyed fishing a little more every year and they are still at it.-
.

 

[U201491]

Really going to miss that Dory this year Jim
Have to do something about a lil aluminum one before too long ????????????

 

[jbett98]

I use to give springers away to some of my good friends, now I'm lucky to put 2 or 3 away in my freezer just for my own consumption.
I'm good enough of a fisherman to get them to bite, but those dam barbless hooks are cutting my netting percentage in half.

 

[Caveman Jim]

I may be putting mine up for sale if my back gets worse. I could go on plenty of guide trips with the proceeds....

My wife works with hospice patients and she would always ask if I had a few fillets I could spare for some of her patients. I always said how many people & would dig around in my basket till I found a package sufficient to the order. Would receive many gifts from them as most were to old to go fishing (which I also offered to take them in my boat).

 

[U201491]

I use to give springers away to some of my good friends, now I'm lucky to put 2 or 3 away in my freezer just for my own consumption.
I'm good enough of a fisherman to get them to bite, but those dam barbless hooks are cutting my netting percentage in half.

Yeah that sucks. One things is with the damned sea lions you don't have a lot of time to play them anyway. I went to 60 and 80 lb tough line and heavier leaders and just keep a tight line and horse the things in anymore anyway. At $20 a lb in the stores I will fight for every one I can get in the boat. We can live on salmon.
I really don't like trout or steelhead near as much. Kokanee are good. Some of the pink meated fish they have been planting are good. I am still trying to figure how they get a pink meated rainbow ??? Yes they are rainbows. Salmon can be cooked in 2 dozen ways, smoked, canned, and just never get tired of it. Our Springers are the best tasting salmon in the world.

bumps on the hook are not barbs

 

[Caveman Jim]

Just talked to my new neighbors (only 3 houses in our area). He is a hunter, fisherman and pro-gun!!!!
And there are STEELHEAD in the river we both fish!!!!
Gonna hit it hard in the A.M..

 

[Salps]

Yeah that sucks. One things is with the damned sea lions you don't have a lot of time to play them anyway. I went to 60 and 80 lb tough line and heavier leaders and just keep a tight line and horse the things in anymore anyway. At $20 a lb in the stores I will fight for every one I can get in the boat. We can live on salmon.
I really don't like trout or steelhead near as much. Kokanee are good. Some of the pink meated fish they have been planting are good. I am still trying to figure how they get a pink meated rainbow ??? Yes they are rainbows. Salmon can be cooked in 2 dozen ways, smoked, canned, and just never get tired of it. Our Springers are the best tasting salmon in the world.

bumps on the hook are not barbs

Odfw hatcheries often feed the trout a food that has a additive in it that produces the pink meat. Can't remember the name of it but it starts with an A. I worked at the hatcheries for 12 years.

 

[bulletpusher]

I gave up bank fishing because of places like the NF Nehalem and the Pipeline Hole on the Sandy. So many more inconsiderate fisherman, and less places to fish left me cold. Oh, so many less fish to fish for also.

I don't need a solitary experience, but I do need people that are courteous and relatively friendly.

Yep;
My most memorable days were late 7o's on the NFNR. Some days in the dead of winter and balmy, backside above K-Q-J, nothing but 12#-18#ers and not a man to be seen anywhere.
Then it all changed............(still have nice stash of old school birdies, 'ya know, the soft styrofoam ones that are real small and in the good colors for that 4:30 bite ~~~~~~~~~~~~{-|--<~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[bulletpusher]

The nehalem hatchery reported they saw one person carry a chrome out yesterday. 503-368-5670 is the hatcherys number.

I can remember when only a couple hundred guys knew that number....now it's a couple hundred thousand guys.

 

[bulletpusher]

Yeah that pretty much sums up many of the problems. I have fished for springers since 1954 at 8 yrs old used to walk through Publishers mill every day and down to Black point and cast spinners, elbow to elbow with about 20 other guys.

The fish averaged in the 25 to 35 pond range and an occasional over 40. We could actually catch our 3 fish limit then also.

Then through the days of trolling above the old bridge when the boats were so thick you could literally walk across the river on them there.

All the hog lines were there. The lake line, the sandbar line, the garbage hole.. etc... The one big thing we did have was the hatcheries were in full production then and never wanted for fish.

Also up til the mid to late 70's the only thing I saw resembling a sea lion was one harbor seal that came up to the locks. Then the Sea lions were made an endangered species.
The population grew and they began flooding into the rivers chasing food (salmon) and each year they brought their young back with them, and no one did anything to stop them.
Back in the days of good fishing we used to shoot any sea lion we found in the rivers.
I remember standing on the bridge at pacific city and shooting them in the fall when they chased the fall run up the Nestucca.
They didn't present a problem then. They fed the crabs.

The native fish will never survive to a level to make a viable recovery or viable fishery any longer and if they rely on that then salmon fishing is finished in the PNW.

A hatchery fish is a native fish is a native fish is a hatchery fish.
Genetically they are identical. All were derived from native fish and the difference is the age they are released to the rivers. Clipping a fin does not make them any different, except in the minds of the idiots and just more control for them.

And the hatchery have their damned fin clipped.
It is a cruel joke on fisherman and an eco nut appeaser.

BRING BACK THE HATCHERIES.

As for the Columbia backing up the willy, yes that has happened since the Corps of Engineers took over the control of the Dams on the Columbia a couple years ago and they flush water downstream clear through to July now. Totally screws up the Willy.

We fished the Willy 4 days a week up to June then Moved out to the Columbia and fished day and night 4 days a week til October each year.
Salmon, Steelhead during the day and Pike Minnow at night and slept on the boat
all summer.
The Corps really fouled up fishing on both rivers, but at least we had current on the "C".

Made it hairy fishing in behind the wing dams for the pike minnow at night though until after July.

We watched the gill nets strip mine the river night after night.
They killed a lot of sturgeon also ion the process.
Then they were supposed to be restricted to seine nets from the beaches, and we watched that fiasco.

They still have not gone to it and are still gill netting.

Total and complete mismanagement mostly by eco-brain-deads have slowly destroyed fishing a little more every year and they are still at it.-
.

TRUE STORY;
1983 somewhere on Puget Sound; had a house right on the water and fished every day before and after building house. Buzz Bomb bonanza right up until the Purse Seiners opened season on us up there. Three days of closing the nets on those resident fish and I had only 10% of the catch from before. They were making a living, I was fishing to eat. All in all, the greatest summer of fishing ever. Nothing like an inch thick Alder smoked salmon sandwich on sourdough bread with cream cheese during the 10 & 2 break time. Salmon for breakfast lunch and dinner.

 

[bulletpusher]

Well, in my, mostly useless, opinion......Oregon is in the last third or so of screwing up the Willamette springer run completely. I moved to PDX in 1983, about that time there was a guy that landed a 55# springer under the Gladstone Bridge on the Clack. The early component of the Willamette springer run was BIG fish, used to see a "First" catch last of December and usually by the middle of January for sure. 20+ pound fish were the norm and 30+ wasn't uncommon. For YEARS back then they were allowing the gill netters to fish in February. Guess what? That is when the largest of the run came in! You do the math! I don't know what the % of hatchery fish there were at that time, but I gotta guess that those "Hog" early springers were wild fish. You just don't see those fish anymore, well, maybe a hand full, if that, of fish close to 30# each year.The only thing that has put a halt to the early gill netting is the damage they do to the wild steelhead, so they fish later now rather than use up their quota of wild steelhead and have to stop. The early part of the run still has the larger fish, 16#-22# if your lucky, but once you get into the peak of the run it can be as bad as nothing but 12# fish and smaller.

The other thing you'll notice if you fish the Willamette spring run......During the time the smolts are outgoing from the Willamette, the entire Willamette from Clackamette Park is a lake. The mandated spring spill from the Columbia dams has the Willamette backed up, like a lake. The spill on the Columbia to [help] flush smolts to the ocean basically negates any flow on the Willamette. Once the water hits 50+ degrees the small mouth bass get active. So you not only have lack of flow, you also have a predator fish just waking up from the winter doldrums, damned hungry, and needing to feed up in preparation to their spawn. They have also cut back on hatchery plant over the years, and just recently MOVED a good portion of the Willamette hatchery plants to Astoria/Youngs Bay, and some of the "Terminal Fisheries" [places to gill net where they are not likely to get native salmon]. That leave less spring salmon returning to the mouth of the Willamette.

Strike three! The Willamette is CHOKED with fisherman from Meldrum Bar up to the deadline below the falls for a couple of months once the run gets going, late March to mid May or so. The seals/sea lions are at numbers, well seals anyway, that are at record highs. They have lost their fear of man. There was a guy that almost got pulled over the side of his boat when a fur bag took a hold of a salmon that was in his net, before he could get it in the boat! The seals/sea lions congregate in the same areas the fishermen do. I don't fish the area myself, way too many idiots and arses. I've heard that at times seals/sea lions are getting close to half the fish hooked at times. The fur bags have learned to just wait, they don't even need to chase a salmon down, just wait for the fishermen to hook one for them and then steal it. The same kind of thing happens in the hog lines in the Columbia, seals just hangin' out below a line of boats waiting for the commotion of a "Fish On!" to signal a meal is being served. The supposed method to keep a fish from being stolen is to stay in a sitting position, don't hoot or holler, don't show a net, and reel fast as you can before the fur bag can steal you prize. Good times!

I guess there's a strike four too if you consider the "Islands" that have been constructed by The Army Corps of Engineers from dredge spoils, near the mouth of the Columbia, that have thousands of fish eating diving birds nesting on them that weren't there 50 years ago. Of course we are not allowed to mess with the birds, or the fur bags due to the PETA types!

Hope that wasn't too hard to read. I'm just a bit bitter of the way fisheries have gone [away] here in Oregon, while the prices have gone up for everything to do with fishing!

Mike

Try watching it happen since 1950 and see how pissed you get.

 

[bulletpusher]

Well, in my, mostly useless, opinion......Oregon is in the last third or so of screwing up the Willamette springer run completely. I moved to PDX in 1983, about that time there was a guy that landed a 55# springer under the Gladstone Bridge on the Clack. The early component of the Willamette springer run was BIG fish, used to see a "First" catch last of December and usually by the middle of January for sure. 20+ pound fish were the norm and 30+ wasn't uncommon. For YEARS back then they were allowing the gill netters to fish in February. Guess what? That is when the largest of the run came in! You do the math! I don't know what the % of hatchery fish there were at that time, but I gotta guess that those "Hog" early springers were wild fish. You just don't see those fish anymore, well, maybe a hand full, if that, of fish close to 30# each year.The only thing that has put a halt to the early gill netting is the damage they do to the wild steelhead, so they fish later now rather than use up their quota of wild steelhead and have to stop. The early part of the run still has the larger fish, 16#-22# if your lucky, but once you get into the peak of the run it can be as bad as nothing but 12# fish and smaller.

The other thing you'll notice if you fish the Willamette spring run......During the time the smolts are outgoing from the Willamette, the entire Willamette from Clackamette Park is a lake. The mandated spring spill from the Columbia dams has the Willamette backed up, like a lake. The spill on the Columbia to [help] flush smolts to the ocean basically negates any flow on the Willamette. Once the water hits 50+ degrees the small mouth bass get active. So you not only have lack of flow, you also have a predator fish just waking up from the winter doldrums, damned hungry, and needing to feed up in preparation to their spawn. They have also cut back on hatchery plant over the years, and just recently MOVED a good portion of the Willamette hatchery plants to Astoria/Youngs Bay, and some of the "Terminal Fisheries" [places to gill net where they are not likely to get native salmon]. That leave less spring salmon returning to the mouth of the Willamette.

Strike three! The Willamette is CHOKED with fisherman from Meldrum Bar up to the deadline below the falls for a couple of months once the run gets going, late March to mid May or so. The seals/sea lions are at numbers, well seals anyway, that are at record highs. They have lost their fear of man. There was a guy that almost got pulled over the side of his boat when a fur bag took a hold of a salmon that was in his net, before he could get it in the boat! The seals/sea lions congregate in the same areas the fishermen do. I don't fish the area myself, way too many idiots and arses. I've heard that at times seals/sea lions are getting close to half the fish hooked at times. The fur bags have learned to just wait, they don't even need to chase a salmon down, just wait for the fishermen to hook one for them and then steal it. The same kind of thing happens in the hog lines in the Columbia, seals just hangin' out below a line of boats waiting for the commotion of a "Fish On!" to signal a meal is being served. The supposed method to keep a fish from being stolen is to stay in a sitting position, don't hoot or holler, don't show a net, and reel fast as you can before the fur bag can steal you prize. Good times!

I guess there's a strike four too if you consider the "Islands" that have been constructed by The Army Corps of Engineers from dredge spoils, near the mouth of the Columbia, that have thousands of fish eating diving birds nesting on them that weren't there 50 years ago. Of course we are not allowed to mess with the birds, or the fur bags due to the PETA types!

Hope that wasn't too hard to read. I'm just a bit bitter of the way fisheries have gone [away] here in Oregon, while the prices have gone up for everything to do with fishing!

Mike

PROBLEM IS.....the decision makers are not fishermen. How many grew up as kids next to the river and on their belly with their nose an inch from the water, looking down into the root wads and watching the fish? How many fished just to have something good to eat? How many have walked miles IN the rivers during the low water, just to see what it looked like? How many have fished in every conceivable condition all year?
NONE.
That is why they do idiotic things like yarding out all the blow down from a river and letting the first big storms scour everything into oblivion. Then they decide after a few years of wondering where all the fish went, to put it all back in by limbing and bucking to make a nice, clean, pretty looking log and drilling a hole in it to thread anchor chain so it won't wash away. See the stupidity yet? NOT A CLUE as to how a river works, and the fish in it. Take out the current breaks, take out the root wad 'hidey holes' for the fish, take out the shade areas, and let the flow cut the banks back so far it just ruins the flow of a river.
PAID IDIOTS....hire a fisherman.

 

[Caveman Jim]

Well Gents, I spent 6 hours in my boat chewing out my 4 year old lab because "she forgot her fishing mojo at home".... The nerve!!!!
My other partner bailed on me the night before and I went solo, against my better halves advice. All was going well then I did a little slip from the floor being wet & BOOM, I threw my back out when I caught my self from falling...
Steelhead 1
Caveman 0.....

 

[Caveman Jim]

Spent yesterday till 1:30 searching for steel, meaning skunked again!!!!
The river is steadily dropping and clearing but should have been there yesterday senerio.......
probably would have done better fishing the fields where ther was water Thursday.....

 

[bulletpusher]

Spent yesterday till 1:30 searching for steel, meaning skunked again!!!!
The river is steadily dropping and clearing but should have been there yesterday senerio.......
probably would have done better fishing the fields where ther was water Thursday.....

Try a DuPont spinner, over by the NF hatchery

 

[Caveman Jim]

I'm up in Wa. little bit of a drive for me......

 

[bulletpusher]

I'm up in Wa. little bit of a drive for me......

They work EVERYWHERE!

 

[Caveman Jim]

Hearing protection required......?