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We'll folks it was another great day at the lake with Pat @HighlandLofts, he brought along his work partner Bill who is very proficient at working the DR's.
I was bummed that Mason was not able to make it but was assured that he wants another B-Day on the lake with Grandpa & Ole Caveman. :s0155:

The weather was cool and overcast and T-shirts were not the order of the day until about 1 pm when the sun decided to say Howdy.
The action was not quite as stellar as other trips starting off and decided to keep quiet for an hour or so then a fish or two at a time decided they wanted to cool off in the ice bath which was way colder than the lake at 68°… :eek::eek::eek:

Slow and steady was the order of the day, this was explained and all agreed that it is called FISHING for a reason… :s0071:
We ended up with 3 limits (15 fish) around 1pm when the wind picked up and made the trip to the ramp a bit slower than this morning.
Sorry but we didn't take many, if any pics at all but there were more Coho than Triploids.
Looking forward to when you guys make it back down. :D
 
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The fishing trip was very comforting with the cool overcast morning.
I was surprised at how deep the water was being so close to the shore line. About fifty feet from the back and the water was close to 200 feet deep. And warm, 68 degrees.

I took a few pictures of the trip.

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I ended up with ten of the fish and will smoke them after our next trip out fishing with the Caveman.
We worked and stayed down there in Mineral at the trailer resort for a week and a half.

Thank you Caveman
 
Mr Caveman was kind enough to host our annual father/daughter fishing trip again ...yesterday. This year our grandson came along for the first time...and the 4 year old caught his first fish ever in Caveman's nice boat. Just a perfect day!
Big Thanks to Caveman Jim ... who always makes it look easy. Gentleman and skilled angler!
 
Mr Caveman was kind enough to host our annual father/daughter fishing trip again ...yesterday. This year our grandson came along for the first time...and the 4 year old caught his first fish ever in Caveman's nice boat. Just a perfect day!
Big Thanks to Caveman Jim ... who always makes it look easy. Gentleman and skilled angler!
You are too kind Sir, just doing what I love to do, fish and have a good time.:D


Well all I can say is it was the perfect day, weather wise to fish here, overcast, cool temps and catching fish with good friends!!!

Taking a kid fishing is one of my most favorite things to do. Mathew caught his first fish on my boat, he followed his mom's and grandpa's orders and reeled it in like seasoned pro. I'm so glad that I could make that happen for him. I do believe that he is hooked for a lifetime of :s0071::s0071::s0071:

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Keeping the little one entertained was not hard to do. :D

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We fished the same area as last year, the action was less than stellar at times and were surprised at the number of Triploids that had sores, we released 3 shy of a dozen. :eek::eek::eek:


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Although we did manage to catch some nice sized fat Trips and a few smaller Coho. We searched out a different area close to the ramp to finish out the trip as time allotted, we didn't want to have a bumpy ride due to the typical Riffe lake wind.

Thanks for the surprise that I found in the box with the bullets when I got home.
Much appreciated my friend. ;)

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We shall do it all over again next year if you choose to. ;)
 
Well folks, the garage sales are over for this year so it's now time to start fishing again. October 1st is the opener for Coho on the Chehalis River, I'm going to hop into a friends boat to learn how he catches silvers. I generally troll herring, Brad's cut plugs or spinners, with the crappy runs lately I need to up my game.
I'll post up some open seats when they come available for the river.
 
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Caveman managed to hook onto a huge attitude today, no slimers wanted to party…
Glad for you that you still have the drive to get out there and do that.

We just got home from three weeks at Siltcoos Lake, where perch trout and bass are the order of the day. had some grand perch "jerking" of fish to 13" with common fish to 9"-10" with nice big humps. On day we had 11 beautiful, wild cutthroat incidental catches from 10"-19". Jane, as usual, gets big bass of the trip at 4.6 lbs.
One day I'd like to be down there when the coho come in in numbers. I KNOW I could hook one of those because of my years tossing spinners for them up here.
 
Good that you guys had some action on the warm water species, I'd like to partake next year if possible.
The way I see it, If I don't fish I'll just shrivel up and die.
Yesterday's solo trip took it out of me, recuperating today…
 
Good that you guys had some action on the warm water species, I'd like to partake next year if possible.
The way I see it, If I don't fish I'll just shrivel up and die.
Yesterday's solo trip took it out of me, recuperating today…
I used to feel like that too. Then fishing the way I liked, dwindling runs, and the rude/stoopid people, all put together with not catching what WAS there and $200.00 for the two of us to just fish for springers, summer steelhead and fall chinook? Sold a ton of my gear and haven't bought their GD salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, HALIBUT(?) tag (For Christ's sake!), in three years. I only took one half day trip since last October 5th to fish the willy for bass. Thank god for Sta-Bil gas treatment is all I can say!

Keep on Keepin' on Jim!
 
In Washington we don't have a lakes only license, except if you live on the dry side I suppose there is a choice.
The more people I talked to about this the more I pound that if we don't say something to WDFW they'll keep mismanaging the dwindling resources then there will be NO FISHING.
Opportunities are what they sell, not catching. :eek:

Gotta die of something right??? :(
 
I was actually the recipient of an open seat from a buddy of mine, a local guy that's been fishing and hunting this area his entire life and he's living in the same house he was born in.

The way we fish is about the same way a lot of people hunt when they get older, the old bull versus the young bull. We do not battle the crowd that just has to launch at first flight and be the first on the river anymore, we mosey on down after everybody has left and splash the boat in without any wait time.

So at 8 o'clock we're motoring up the Chehalis river for some coho fishing, we stop at the first hole (that had been ignored by the Wolfpack) and start sore mouthing the silvers.

The fishing was great, the catching was even better but all of the eight adult silvers that we brought to the boat, everyone was an unclipped hatchery fish. I say this because the dorsal fins were all deformed like fish that are raised in the hatcheries and the adipose fins were small compared to the thumb sized on true Wild fish.

All was not lost because we were able to catch three fat Jack's. It's just disheartening to me that there is something going on with this fishery that is being withheld from stakeholders (fishers who pay for the opportunity to catch fish).
 
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That knubbed over dorsal fin is a good giveaway that those coho were in cement raceways as smolts. Down at the lake we caught a bunch of wild cutthroat, caught one "Blue Back" (which I've never seen one fresh from the ocean). And we saw several rainbow trout the were certainly hold-overs from plants in previous years showing the knubbed over dorsal. And a couple rainbows with perfect dorsal fins. Not one of the cutts had deformed dorsal fins.
 
Jane, as usual, gets big bass of the trip at 4.6 lbs.
Oh man, that IS a nice bass!!

The gal that was on the crew that delivered my fridge yesterday told me that one of the multispecies lakes that was my fav to fish (Bass, perch, coho, big rainbow, and now walleye and pike) is down to zero with just a trickle flow of the Powder River thru the center. But those drawdowns are not unusual because Phillips Reservoir is an agricultural impoundment that is managed for the crops in nearby Baker County. Anyway, she told me she once caught a 10lb bass there. Fishing from the bank with a live crawler. Fuuuuuuudge! To me that is pretty Bohemian fishing but hey, it's still fabulous playing, catching, and eating. The biggest I caught there was 5lb largemouth (they have both smallies and lg). But the biggest bass I ever caught in Oregon was a 10lb largemouth at Unity Reservoir out of my 10' rowboat. They have some big rainbow there too.

You and she incite me to want to go fishing again. Might buy a license next year. Sold much of my gear but still have about 10 rods left.
 
We pitched spinners all day, I'm not used to that anymore and am sore from standing so much.
But I'll live to fish another day. ;)
No kidding! Out of the three weeks we were gone there were probably four days we didn't fish! I was doing some funky creative body contortions casting for bass. And jerking for perch didn't help. Ice was my friend some nights.

I used to LOVE pitching Blue Fox spinners for summer steelhead, chinook and coho at the mouth of The Sandy River where it dumps into The Columbia. The first years hiking in, and after having a boat fishing it the same way, along side the bank fisherman. Had to stop because it became too frustrating having other boats that would anchor over water the fish held in instead of fishing from the shallows where the fish didn't hold.
 
Well folks, it's that time again. I finally made my day maiden voyage today at Summit Lake since it's only 20 minutes away. I hooked six fish before 10 am, landed one.

Note to self put the damn net in the boat next time. LOL
 

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