Hottest bite of the season!

To say there are a lot of fish around would be an absolute understatement. We set out with a crew of half accomplished fishermen and half newbies. The salmon didn't care who had experience though and every single rod ended up pointing towards the water with either a coho or a chinook on it. Multiple double and triple hookups were on offer throughout the morning, and we even found ourselves into a quadruple hookup at one point. The beginners did great and spirits stayed high whenever a fish escaped. Everyone got nice big fish to the boat with three people catching their first ever Salmon. Since the action was so quick, I tagged two fish for this crew and sent them home with them as a gift as well. The day ended with a total of 14 salmon (9 Coho and 6 Chinook) in the bag, 20 fish to the boat, and well over 30 bites. This is truly an amazing time to be Salmon fishing in Astoria!

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!

Some days the goal isn't limits. The goal is to just be flexible and have fun. Today was one of those days. We started out going for ling cod and rockfish and ended up playing with a sabiki rig to catch anchovies, because it was just too much fun. To make things cooler, we got to see a huge selection of sea birds, Wells, porpoises, seals and sea lions throughout the entire day. This crew came all the way from West Virginia, and this was a completely different experience for them. It was also one that they won't soon forget. I can't wait to see them on the boat again. I'm excited to see what happens the next time, we go out.