Made it down to Longview Saturday evening and was excited for the chance of at some of those migrating chromers heading up the Columbia and we made a final check of the boat to make sure were ready to head out at O' dark 30.

Woke up at 3:45 and after getting our coffee and filling our thermos headed out to the launch! Now again was told to expect light winds up to 5mph and clear skies! NOT! When we got to where we could see the river a head wind greeted us and we could see white caps out on the water. A thick marine layer accompanied the strong winds so we were slightly discouraged but still had high hopes of tying into a nice steelhead today. Headed over to the East side of Puget island and found it to be a little protected from the wind so dropped anchor in 12' of water and tied on a 2 rig set up per line with one having a spin and glo with cured shrimp and other with eggs and a 2 oz drop sinker and cast out and waited for a hit.. had to attach the wind socks to keep the boat straight and felt we were it a good area as there was a guide below us and a guide above us.

After 5 hours of cleaning grass and stuff off our lines and putting on fresh bait every half hour and the wind getting stronger instead of calming down, decided to call it a day at least out here. Pulled anchor and Craig wanted to run up river and see if he could find a guide friend of his to see how he was doing. We never saw him and as we were turning around, his 65 hp jet died!! Maybe it's me! Now we were in trouble as the wind was really kicking now and white caps all around but thank goodness for kickers as he has a 9.9 mercury and it started right up we were able to make it back across over to Puget island and hug the shore to make the long, slow trip back to the launch.

It took about an hour ( instead of 10 minutes) but finally made it back to the launch in one piece! Whew!~ and of course, the wind calmed down and the skies cleared so we still wanted to go fishing so decided to take the boat home and he would follow me to Riffe lake at the dam to do some bobber/shrimp fishing for Silvers. Got there around 2pm and was amazed at high the water was since the last time I was there. Seemed pretty slow but some a few jumping and a few caught but after 2 hours we said our good-byes and parted ways. I just hope his fix for his motor will be as easy as mine was.

Will be switching out this week to pretty much just salt water as the morning tides look good and is easier for me to start my day fishing before work then trying to fish during or after work! lol and the kings should be showing up in better numbers each day!! see you on the water!!

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