Coastal Tour

Craig and I headed to the coast today.  We were going to head there last night, but Craig had an awesome idea. Sleep in, fish for some Larries in the morning and then fish the incoming tide for some salmon in the afternoon.   
We fished in a lake for a few hours and found some bass.  I landed 3 including a 17.5 incher and Craig got a nice 12 inch or so fish as we were trolling back.  I’ll let Craig explain why there is no picture of his bass.  Needless to say it was very sad.   
From there we moved out to the tidewater.  The wind was ripping which made for a very wet ride, and for some reason there were no boats out with us.  We trolled herring for an hour or so and saw tons of bait on the fishfinder and some surface activity, but no salmon.   The bait disappeared and I was thinking about switching to a spinner when I felt a few taps.  Soon I had a fish on.  When I got it to the boat I saw it was clipped, but being the first coho I was able to get into a net, I wanted to be 100% sure it was a coho.  I asked Craig, he phoned a friend and then we searched the internet.  After that I was sure so I bonked it.  We trolled against the tide for a while but the tide really started moving and the best we could do was hold position.   This lasted for maybe an hour before we got to tired and headed home.   
Overall it was a good day.  It would have been nice to see Craig get into some fish, but he will catch them next time. 

Nice report and catch NDOGG!   

Awesome job Nate. That's a great looking silver and soooo tasty too.

For sure you had a good day!

Nice fish Nate.  As long as it remains open the Estuary can be productive through October and very few fish it after August.

Scott

Great fish Nate!

Great looking fish!

Dat's a big 'ho! Nice!

Congrats on the first coho Nate! That's a great looking fish.

Nice Coho Nate!

And, with that, we have a new AOTY Leader!

-Spot-

And, with that, we have a new AOTY Leader!

-Spot-

Wow. It's going to be fun to watch the top guys battle it out. Game on!

Good job ND. Was gonna go up their again yesterday but decided to head down to Nehalem Bay instead. Probably gonna head up their again tomorrow though if anyone's interested....

Thanks guys.  Hopefully I can hold onto first for at least a little while. 


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As Nate mentioned, we had a great time.  It started the day before when I looked at the tide tables and realized 1) We would have to be up real early (my wife says I need as much beauty sleep as I can get) so that wasn't a viable option, and 2) we would not get much time before the tide switched on us. So, I came up with the master plan: 

Step 1:  Go out Monday night and catch a Willy Walleye
Step2:   Wake up at a decent hour; drive west and catch a large mouth; and then upgrade the panfish points
Step 3:  Hit the Columbia for a limit of coho.

The planned results were for me to pick up about 400 points and move up to the top 5.  But with all of my plans, things went slightly awry for me. However, Nate fared much better.   I will now post my results next to Nate's:

           Walleye
Me:       Failure
Nate:     Failure, but had a couple bites

           Panfish upgrade

Me:    too busy trying to catch a bass.    -failure
Nate:   Caught a few bluegill, but he didn't need the upgrade due to the bass catch

          Bass

Me: caught one, it whooped my ass and wanted nothing to do with being measured-Partial failure
Nate:  Awesome bass    -Win

          Coho

Me:     Failure
Nate:   Score!  Those fillets looked delicious

I did not get skunked, at least (if only I had the photo to prove it ).  The problem I had was the stupid, super-slimy bass I caught submitted very easily... until I reached for the tape measure.  Then, he went nutso and flopped over board.  That would have been my eighth species of the year. 

Here is a couple shots of Nate's bucket mouth





Here we are making a phone call to absolutely verify the fish was a coho prior to the wood shampoo application.  Unfortunately, no one answered the first call (I'm looking at you Jammer .)  But, we were able to confirm with absolute certainty.  It almost didn't matter since a seal started following Nate around.


My main goal this year was to catch ten different species of fish.  The challenge has forced me to get out fishing and go places and catch fish I would not have tried for before.  There have been a few days when I just wasn't sure If I wanted to go due to a limited amount time, or some other lame excuse.  But, I can say I have not regretted a single miserable failed attempt.  This shit is addictive.

-Craig