Eric and I fished the Hoh on Saturday with no luck. It was a fine day, a bit rainy, but not too bad.
Everything was great until we tried to take the boat out at Nolan Creek. While loading the boat on the trailer, we broke the roller mount. Then Eric ran over his rod. We got the mount completely off and then we managed to get the boat on the trailer. What a pain in the arse. Left a bit of fiberglass on the trailer. Made it back to Erics just as things began to turn to freezing rain. !!YIKES!! Got the trailer fixed Sunday morning.
We put in at Maxfield. The river was at just over 3 boards. Just after the frog water below Shuwah Riffle, Eric got this nice Native on a jig (pink with white head and some sparkley stuff). I will ask him for another picture or two. Perhaps this is a new cover for fishingandbeer.com? Had planned to Drift with Pete Monday. As he hadn't heard from me all weekend, he had made plans to go Plunking. It was all moot anyhow. Bogachiel was the first to go to flood warning. I saw there was 4 1/2 inches of rain in Forks yesterday.
Whats next?It seemed as though I was never going to catch a Springer. 13 days on the River with nothing in the boat. I was beginning to think that I was truly cursed. If I was cursed fishing with Tim on the “True Story” fixed that.
I pulled into the front row at Cathlamet around 11pm. It was dead quite so I crawled into the Broncominium and racked out. At 5am I started looking for the boat as no ones phone was working. I got lucky and it was the third boat down on the first dock. Soon we were off for the Clifton channel. Tim was fishing with a Tangle Flash to a cut plug with a green spin-n-glo, and I was on the old standby, whole herring. I was tending Tim’s rod as he steered the boat. As the Sun came up Tim’s rod went down. I thought it was the bottom so I picked it up and it pulled back. Fish On!
We put that one in the boat as Bill showed up. It wasn’t long til he was fish on, too. That is the Sunrise picture. It really doesn’t quite capture how beautiful it was that morning.
As the tide turned we headed out into the main channel. It was pretty cool having radar as it was really foggy. We anchored up in around 30 feet of water on the outside of Tenashile Island. We got a hit or three but never hooked up. Bill proved to be the Fishslayer. He put two in the boat on while on anchor. As the tide turned to incoming we headed back into the Clifton Channel. At the very bottom Evan got slammed on a (secret widget) . This was a beauty fish, native maybe 30 pounds. We got him back on his way and started to troll again. Three strikes in a row and one hook up. ME! I had the fish on for a couple of seconds and then nothing but a mangled herring. Perhaps I was cursed?
Sunday dawned a bit windy, from the East. We headed strait for Clifton Channel. As we arrived there were a number of boats Fish On!. I got totally faked out as Bill trolled right next to us fowling my line. I slammed the hookset home. Greg, Bills fishing partner was lucky he was not holding his rod or I would have surely yanked it out of his hands! I thought for sure it was a fish. Well not 5 minutes after that I finally got my Springer. On exactly the same thing I have been dragging around since the season started.
Again as the tide began to run we headed out into the main Stem and anchored up. Within minutes Evan was on one. After a short nap I got a serious Drive By. Maybe my taclkel isn’t cursed after all. At some point ‘Ske anchored up outside of Bill. I decided to run a Purple K15. As soon as that thing touched the water, both Tim and ‘Ske hooked up. Ske had his handsfull with the kid playing the fish. It got about a 100 yards on him before ‘Ske took the Rod back. After one of the most freightening net jobs I have ever seen ‘Ske boated his first. He got two more pretty quickly after that. Bill was the dick in the middle! You know that couldn’t last and it didn’t. He got one just before the tide stopped running.
We also boated one more. Tim and I were both looking at something on the floor when we heard his drag start to run. I looked at him, he looked at me and we suddenly came to our senses and figured out it was FISH ON! This one was a carbon copy of the other three in the cooler. All in all, it was a great weekend. It was a real pleasure meeting Tim and fishing on the “True Story” I hope to have a chance to do it again. And remember “Never Sniff a Gift Fish”
Thanks Tim
In what has now stretched out to 12 days of fishing, the Slump continues. I have not even got a strike since the second day out. I fished the Cowlitz with my old buddy Ope. Saturday we went up from Blue Creek above the Pump House. There were lots of Springers in there giving me and everyone else the Fin. No takers. We fished up pretty high finishing the day at Baker Rock. We saw no fish. They were getting a few Steelhead at the Clay Bank.
Sunday morning Ope hooked up on what was sure to be a Springer. In an unbeliveable turn of events, it escaped. We were crushed. It seems that Ope put a snap between him and the fish. Don't do that. It is bad. The Slump must end soon.
We suck.
Bill the Fishslayer, Ske and I fished out of the mouth of the Cowlitz on Saturday the 13th. We saw a number of fish caught, the first on a large trolled cut plug with a jet diver. As the tide turned we anchored up in a row of 5 or so boats in around 24' of water. Ske got smacked after about 30 minutes on a mostly green K11. We saw 3 more fish hit the net during the outgoing tide. The mouth of the cowlitz is choked with sand and mud and requires a lot of attention at low tide. I would think that you need to hold left of center returning. We hit the sand twice, both Saturday and Sunday on our return. Sunday Bill, Chip and I . I got chomped big time trolling a whole "smurf" (Blue dyed herring). Hit hard enough to run the drag on the knucklebuster for about 1/4 second. All I got back was one mangled herring eyeball on 5/0 Gamakatsu. That was it for the day, however the boat on the right went 1/2 as did the boat on the left. We were the dicks in the middle.
