Hottest bite of the season!

We set out around 7AM with a hot tip from a buddy of mine and immediately dropped into a multiple hookup trolling pass with one in the boat and a couple lost before I could even give instructions on how to reel in a salmon. To say we were "on fish the whole day" would be an understatement. As soon as the bite died down in one spot it was time to land on another massive batch of fish in another. Between releases, missed bites, and fish in the boat the rods dove for the water over 30 times. Our crew ended up with 12 nice salmon, including one upriver bright chinook that looked to be as near as perfect quality as you can get for a fall salmon in the Columbia River. To make it even better, the Coho are averaging around 10 lbs now which means we're in for some amazing fall coho action with lots of quality fish to the boat. Today's crew was made up of some repeat clients and new friends that they brought aboard. It's awesome to see folks come back year after year. This is the type of experience I live for. Not only did they have a great time, but they somehow even had a better time than last year. I can't wait to see them again with smiles on their faces when they get on board and when they leave with another 30 lbs of fillets!

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!