Northwest Fishing Reports

I'm sure if you've river fished long enough, you will have encountered the native large scale sucker. Typically you'll hook up with them while drifting bait through the tail end of a hole. In many instances, they give you a jolt of adrenaline as they go tearing off into the main current while foul hooked, giving the initial impression you have laid into a good fish. Today, however, was a first for me. After anchoring above a confluence, I dropped a River Rocker into the seam and sat down to have some lunch. One bite of my sandwich and my rod is doing the dance, right on! I even get a tease of surface action but I can't make much out, other than the fish is dark, as the water is pretty stained. Finally I get the fish next to the boat and to my surprise, it turns out to be one big and fat large scale sucker. What made this unusual and a first for me, is it was a clean hookup inside the mouth with a plug. Anyone else ever hookup with a sucker while running a plug?

Lol, no. I totally nailed a nice one the other day dogging eggs though. Thought I had steel #2 on for a second...

Rapalas, Mepps, Big Digs, Plastic worms, and once, a popper! Probably my greatest "Sucker!" surprise was reeling in a sturgeon rig with a big chunk of Lamprey on a 12/0 hook with a sucker on the point, perfectly hooked! Caught a whitefish like that once too. Have no idea how that thing got the tip of the hook in its mouth! It came in backwards because it couldn't get past the barb!

If it's near the spawn, the suckers seem to live up to their name...

Saw a sucker hooked on a flatfish back in my boy scout days.

Hook one in the mouth jiggin for pinks this year. Saw him come up and grab too!

It's a shame they have such small mouths. I think it affects their ability to put up a sustained fight. They can be fun on light tackle, but after the first or second run, they are usually just dead weight.