Friday 4/17 - What a mess! Sellwood report

Friday 4/17, decided I wanted to take off work early and get some trolling time in on the Willamette.  Loaded up the boat and headed down the hill.  Figured I would park by Sellwood Park on the street and roll the boat down the hill into the water there at the end of the road.  Apparently most of Portland had the same idea since it was a Sh!t show there with multiple people backed into the end and unloading boats.  No parking to be found for blocks. 

Decided to go over to Willamette park to see if I could have better luck...NOPE! The line to get into the parking backed up to the trolley rails.  Turned around and considered my options.  Looked for parking in the neighborhoods by the boat ramp, but nothing within a couple blocks.  Seriously considered just going home and trying again another day, but given my limited fishing opportunities these days, I didn't want to waste this chance and renegotiate with the better half for another day. 

Headed back over to Sellwood to try one more time and luckily 2 guys were packing up their car and I grabbed a spot right near the end of the road.  It was as I was unloading the boat that I realized I had forgot my Mirage drive in my rush to pack up as quickly as possible...DOH!!! Luckily I had my backup paddle so I got to figure out how well the Compass paddled (Not bad actually!). 

Get on the water, go to rig a herring and realized I had also forgot mooching rigs (at this point I was really reconsidering being on the water since I was facing a string of mistakes and bad "luck").   Cut up one of the rigs on a super bait luckily and made it work. 

Trolled the bridge area and up to waverly for a few hours.  Tremendous amount of wakeboard and ski board traffic that couldn't have helped with fishing.  I really wish they would ban wake surfing on the Willamette.  The fisher people I did see were practicing social distancing well with what appeared to be singles or family units together...wake boats on the other hand were packed with what appeared to be groups of unrelated friends, but what do I know?

No luck and very few other people fishing.   Only marks I got were in the deep hole above the bridge.  My fish finder has been acting up lately (should have paid heed to the comments that the new Hook2 series was crap), but seemed like a bit was suspended there in the 10-30ft range, but no takers. 

Better luck next time I guess!