Had another great day of fishing this weekend on the Willamette river in Portland, Oregon. I tried for springers (spring Chinook salmon) from 9-noon with no success. Lots of folks around fishing for springers and I did not see any fish caught. I did not even see the sea lions get any fish – the salmon just were not around. I decided that was enough of that foolishness and so I broke out my trusty sturgeon rod and decided to see if they were feeling cooperative. They definitely were! The bite was really hot. I caught 11 fish in 4 ½ hours and missed and lost several more. I have attached pics of my 4 biggest. It is hard to tell from the photo but the one fish was a real pig. It is angled a little funny but was pushing 50” and one of the fattest sturgeon I have ever caught. The fight was really exciting. A couple of minutes into the fight he came out of the water and made a really high, spectacular jump, which pretty much every salmon fisherman around me got to see. Then after a long fight with a lot of drag stripping I was able to wrestle it into the kayak for a quick picture. In the background of the picture you can see a little girl on shore. The folks there were having some kind of a big cookout and everyone cheered when I landed that fish. For the rest of the day I had a lot of folks comment on the jump that fish made. What a great day on the water!
