Weekend Recap

April 26, 2020

On Saturday we fished the Head of the Channel area from 6:00am to 12:30pm. There wasn’t a lot of pressure due to the heavy rain and wind in the forecast. We ran laps through the the channel entrance, the flats, the power lines, and the green barges. At 8:00am I was on the phone with a friend when he abruptly said, “fish on, gotta go”. I wasn’t far behind his boat so I watched carefully looking for his net to go up. It didn’t happen. The fish had peeled some line but it spit the hooks. That was disappointing but it gave me an idea of where I should concentrate my efforts. I trolled through the same area where he hooked up making several passes upriver and downriver. Five minutes later a net went up and a fish was landed. Shortly after that, a second fish was landed about 100 feet away from us. With rain coming down we watched our rods hoping for a takedown and finally our opportunity appeared. I didn’t see the initial pull down but looked over to see Dirk’s rod making a strange movement. It could be best described as a vibration. I thought that a stick had tangled with his 360 flasher. After observing this for 20 seconds Dirk picked up his rod and pulled back. Much to my surprise it wasn’t debris from the river, we had hooked a Springer. This is perhaps the strangest takedown I’ve ever seen. The pro-troll flasher came to the surface and the fish rolled just behind it. Due to the fact that we’ve lost a few hot fish near the the boat lately, Dirk and I decided that we would let this fish wear itself out before bringing it to the surface. Our plan worked and Dirk carefully led the springer into the net just as we had planned. We trolled the area for a few more hours and didn’t see anything caught. I was disappointed that a real bite didn’t happen where several anglers could have caught fish. We ended our day at 12:30pm. The fish checker told us that three fish were checked-in for 17 boats. I enquired about how other boat ramps reported during the week and he said that the Channel had slowed, Willamette park wasn’t producing, and there wasn’t much effort at Oregon City. This was exactly what I had heard from friends during the week.

On Sunday we launched at Cathedral Park ramp at 6:00am. The weather forecast called for sunny/cloudy weather without much wind. That’s the kind of forecast I like. Well, the weather was fantastic but the fishing was slow. We only saw two fish caught for what looked like 100 plus boats. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that many boats below the St. Johns Bridge. A friend told me that six fish were checked in for 67 boats. Ugh, that’s not what you would expect in the last week of April. Well, I’m going to keep at it. There are fish crossing the falls in good numbers and eventually they are going to starting biting. I will have a video out this week from our Saturday Catch so look for that to come out mid-week. One of our Youtube viewers, Miles Hekker, caught his first springer for the season. He was one of the few anglers to find a fish today. Congratulations, Miles. Tight lines.