Fish are just fun!

We made the decision to go to the ocean the last two days in a row. Even though Buoy 10 has been open for a week, the coho are just starting to enter the river and this crew needed to fill a freezer. Full boat limits of salmon came quickly on both days with the ocean being much less rough than forecast. The action on Sunday was nearly non-stop until we moved to try to find a few more Chinook, running one shy of the maximum on Chinook, but filling the slot with a nice Coho. Saturday turned up an even split with the maximum for Chinook and the rest of the boat limit filled out with Coho as well. To top it off, both the humpback and gray whales decided to take a visit and check us out. Between the good weather and great crews, this weekend was all I could ask for!

What a great, and fast day! 12 keeper salmon in 2 hours of having lines in the water with another 4 released. You can't hardly write the script any better. While Buoy 10 has opened up, the best action has remained in the ocean with plenty of salmon stacking up outside before making their way into the river. We left early to make the bar crossing before the tide started pulling too hard. Once out, we stayed close to the Cape Disappointment lighthouse and circled schools of Coho and Chinook Salmon with our longest wait for a bite staying at less than 20 minutes. The fish highlight was a beautiful upriver bright Chinook with spots so small that she could almost have been mistaken for a Coho. Not only was this big female the biggest fish of the day, the fillets had some of the best color you could ask for in a fall Chinook. We ended the day with full limits of Salmon including an even split of Chinook and Coho. These guys are going to have some amazing eating when they get back home and I can't wait to see them again

Today started with rods going down quickly and the action didn't stop for hours. We had near constant bites for most of the morning which meant great fishing. Multiple doubles made for a mad scramble on the deck. The only problem was that the majority of the coho were of the "wild" variety without having a clipped adipose fin which meant they had to be released. We finished around 1PM with all of the fish (including 2 on my own tag) for a total of 5 keeper coho and 1 keeper Chinook. We had a total of 28 salmon to the boat with only a few lost. This was one of those days where the fishing was as good as the weather and both were spectacular. Astoria's Salmon fishing is really shining right now and I can't wait to do more.