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In October of last year I purchased a 2000 Hewescraft Searunner and have spent the winter getting it rigged out. While doing so, I came accross this website and found it to be very informative due to the gr eat stories, photos, bait utilized, weather conditions, locations where fish were caught and the sure professionalism displayed by the people submitting these stores. I want to personally thank all of you for a great job.
I took my father fishing on the Snake River Saturday and Sunday for a few Chinook and did we ever have a great time. The weather Saturday was 60's, with 20 to 30 mile winds with definate gusts.The new river anchor held and we fished just below the Lyons Ferry Fish Hatchery. We watched bank fishermen and two boaters float shrimp for Steelies and a few were caught. I caught two jacks and one 15lb keeper with a Luhr Jensen Crippled Minnow jigging of the bottom. (White and green in color, barbs removed). My dad had a keeper on, but lost it on the third run. Unfortane for him. Lots of bites and lost a few, but it was still a great day. Once we got back to the marina, my four fish were inpected and all had chips. The inspector removed the heads and clipped a fin from each fish and talked with me about how things had been going for the season. The yound man was very polite and professional.
Moored the boat overnight, which made it nicer not having to pull out and put in. Plus the marina only charged $8.00 with no launch fee. Savings of $2.00 and no headache. Because the road to Starbuck was closed for repairs, we stayed the night at the marina in my new pop up camper. We ate at the marina and the burgers were great. I cleaned my fish and after a setting up the camper, we caught some ZZZZ'ss.
Sunday, the winds were mild and anchoring was much easier. Caught a jack right off the bat and had a couple on that I lost. Anothe boat pulled in and the couple were doing very well with 3 to the boat, 1 keeper and the wife had one on that zipped the line out and she couldn't pull it back.
Then I got a bite that I will not forget. It almost acted like a snag, except the line was moving and my pole was bent to the max. I couldn't pull up in fear of snapping my steelie rod. The fish never really ran, it just swam away, taking more line. It surfaced and jumped and I saw that I had a big Chinook on. It quickly dove and went under the boat and around my anchor line. Between me and my dad, we worked the pole around the line and pulled the anchor up. We drifted atleast 1/2 mile down the river with my pole bent to the breaking point the entire time. After 30 minutes, allot of tugging, reeling and hoping, I finally got the fish up. On 14lb test, I had just caught a 25 pound + Wild Chinook.
I knew what I had to do, don't net it, keep it in the water, get the hook out and release the fish in the best condition possible. In one way, it was hard to let it go, but when it swam away, I was happy, because he was still strong and unhurt. I was thankfull to have experienced it with my dad and thought about the great work that the Fisheries Dept is doing keeping the hatcheries going and the counts climbing so that we can again fish for these majestic fish.
Hats off to the Wa St fish hatcheries and the Game Dept for enforcing the rules. For the Marina for a great place to camp, eat and have a nice weekend. The roads from spokane to ritzville and south to Lyon Ferry were in great shape.
I do have pictures on my phone, so as soon as I can figure out how to transfer them, I will. If this story is well received, I will continue to submit new ones and become hopefully another fisherman in Washington sharing his stories with others.
Hope to see you down there for the last weekend of Chinook fishing on the Snake this weekend. Then I am planning on focusing my attention on Rufus Woods.
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