Sellwood Blackmouth Frenzy 3/24/15

Well, I got a Hobie about six weeks ago and I have taken it out trolling for salmon three times so far. I am just loving trolling hands-free and aside from the fact that my feet go numb after an hour or so it is great. Today I took the kayak to Sellwood to fish the shelf in front of Oaks Park and didn't expect a lot of action due to the lack of good fishing reports. There were a few boats hitting the spot by the time I got out, but it turns out that I was to be the lucky guy.
After getting the Hobie, I have always envisioned my first hook-up as a calm, calculated battle, where I patiently subdue the fish while manuevering the boat away from hazards until the ultimate moment where I gently pedal the fish to the position right next to me where I scoop it up effortlessly in the net. The way it happened in reality was much different. As soon as I got the rod out of the holder, it snapped in half. Truly, I have no idea why this happened because I run my drag really loose for herring rolling. I at first tried reeling it in with the two piece rod but realized quickly the potential for disaster so I decided to try hand-lining the fish to the boat. Thankful for a relatively cooperative fish, I did manage to get it to the top and into the net after a very short struggle. Thanks Fish-Gods!
Well, I was obviously done after that but heartened and far from defeated, so I drove to Bi-Mart and waited outside for a half an hour for them to open so I could buy another salmon rod. Then I drove home, had breakfast, filleted a beautiful chrome 32" springer, had a victory breakfast beverage, and of course headed back to Sellwood.
When I got back out to the shelf people kept asking me if I was the guy who got the fish on the broken rod and I had to respond "guilty as charged" and whatnot but after about 20 minutes everyone had left because evidently no one else was catching fish. That was fine with me and I was elated already after the first one so I just put on some tunes and rolled my herring right up to the spot where I hooked the first one. No more than 30 minutes into my second outing of the day, my brand new $60 rod got slammed and I knew right away that I was onto a good sized springer. This time I was actually pretty calm and I did maneuver the fish beautifully light a matador with the bull and it took quite a long time and my net was kind of small and I missed a few times but the mirage drive did help tremendously when it was time to get the net under the fish. I couldn't help but let out a holler when I saw the finless 21 pound chromer in my net.
After putting number two in the cooler, I headed out to the Waverly golf course sturgeon hole but my heart wasn't into sturgeon fishing because my head was swarming with salmon. I caught a few shakers and headed back in.
I was fishing the shelf in front of the plastic private kayak dock at Oaks Park. I was using a naked (no flasher) plug cut herring brined with blue dye and a little anise (smurf butt) and both fish were caught in 20-25fow.
Go get em!
This is a Cinderella story.

Simply AWESOME!!!!

Thanks for sharing!

-Mark-

Go buy a lottery ticket man and make this day last as long you can. Awesome!

RUFKM
Congrats! You just had the average joe's springer season packed into a few hours.

Outstanding!  That is the way to make it happen...Gotta Believe and see it happening before it really does!

Amazing story! Thanks for the report.

WOW!!!! Great job, great story, beauty fishes....Congrats!

Way to go.I'm jealous.

That's just plain awesome!  Congratulations!

Congrats on a great day!   

Congrats! I need to get out there!

That is ridiculous.  I fished there yesterday in a friends boat, did not see a single fish caught.  Nice work!!

Great report and nice fish!  Well done!

Congrats on a killer day and a great story.  When I started reading I thought a submerged wing dam was going to come into play.  Glad to see it didn't and you got both fish safely to the boat. 

Great story.  Congrats!