Columbia River, Pacific Ocean salmon

[TyBoo]

Fished in the river for a little while tonight. We got two big Chinook. The first one was an old Tule that looked good in the water and the net but turned dark real quick and had pale pink meat. I cut him up and froze it for crab bait.

The smaller fish (~20 lbs.) was a beauty. Firm and dark red meat. I was really lucky to land the second fish. He was darting around all crazy in the water fighting more like a wild Coho than a big Chinook. As he got close to the boat we saw why. There was a seal chasing him around after he was hooked. I horsed him to the boat fast and as the net went in the water to get him the seal veered away and shot off like an underwater rocket. Fun evening.

I have some more pics of ocean silvers and adventures from the last couple weeks I will post when I get time.

Here's today:

 

[rogerbum]

Mike,

Nice job. Before you commit that light flesh king to crab bait, cook some up and try it. When I catch kings in the ocean (well away from any river entrance), some are red, some are pink, some are almost white and some are "calico" (a mottled white/pink cross). All are tasty.

 

[B~C]

awsome, save some fish for me I'm getting paroled the 26th and am thinking about an Ilwaco adventure when I get home. How is the silver run holding up?

 

[starcrafttom]

Nice fish mike. crab bait? really? looks like a good smoker to me.

 

[TyBoo]

Hey Ken - the silvoids are showing up in the river and most of the fishing the last few days is on the WA side by the bridge. They are a little smaller than they should be this late. The ocean silvers have been 4-6 pounds with a couple 10 pounders in the box. We have gone out four or five times with limits on all but the last trip last Sunday. One keeper and 8 natives plus several drive bys and released little guys. Didn't want to get up this morning so didn't go. Might try the evening tide again.

Here are some phone pics.

River. This is the crab bait from last night...


Ocean...


Ocean...


River. Rogue River Red...


River...


Ocean. This guy is 8 miles offshore. It was that nice...


Ocean...

 

[lloyds]

Mike: As the river starts to pick up, how hard is it to launch, and where? I have thought about launching at cathlamette and running downriver, is that practical or necessary?

 

[TyBoo]

Warrenton and Hammond are the most popular launch places. Warrenton is $5 launch and park if you can find a place to park. I am sure Hammond is the same. Astoria's East End Basin has a ramp, and the John Day ramp is a few miles up river. Cathlamet is neat and the run down and back is fun if the wind doesn't blow, but it is two hours away. Best bet is to launch at Warrenton and get a slip for however long you will be here. I don't know how much that would be. All the ramps close by are crazy for the last couple weekends in August. There is also Chinook on the WA side, but I don't know much about it. And there's Ilwaco down by the mouth if you want to be close to the ocean.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

New fishing technique...

 

[TyBoo]

This evening:



This Chinook is real bright and pretty on the outside, but he cut pink. I will save him to smoke though, because he is way better than crab bait quality.

That Tule yesterday that you guys think I should smoke is no good at all for eating. Soft and slimy meat - almost rotten feeling. I normally let those fish go but that one looked pretty good when he came up. I do not normally keep a salmon for use as crab bait.

I had a real nice coho on but he shot around the back of the boat and - get this - he went over a trim tab and under the actuator so the line was trapped between the actuator and the transom. He was right there and holding pretty still so I tried to get him in the net so I could unhook the line, but he broke off and headed off with my favorite spinner. I did see while he was stuck that he was fin clipped and legal. Nice fish, too. Oh well. Hooked and lost two others, and released a small one.

 

[TyBoo]

Lots of time fishing today but very little catching. Boats were landing fish all around me but the few that I hooked either got loose or had to be released. The things are getting pretty crafty at escaping, too. Here's what one of them did to my spinner:



Finally, just before dark, we got the lone keeper of the day.

 

[rogerbum]

Mike,

Some of the ocean kings I get at Neah are red, some are pink, some are white and some are "calico" or mottled pink/white. All taste just fine so I don't think color is a good indication of quality.

Looks like you're getting some nice fish down there. I might have to sneak down in a weekend or two.

 

[TyBoo]

No fishing tonight. It is blowing like crazy and just started raining. That will bring the fish up the river. They will probably all be past by my next days off.

 

[TyBoo]

Beautiful night on the river. Not a bite or any fish seen caught by anyone, but still a great evening.

View out the open front window.


View from the fish pole cam.


Ready to head in.

 

[TyBoo]

 

[TyBoo]

 

[rogerbum]

Either you've lost weight or that's a big fish. :wink:

 

[TyBoo]

We were out on the windy river yesterday and got three fish in the box. The second one upped the boat record for most salmon in a season. Not a big deal because the record was 35, but good for me because my fishing time has been cut way back in the last few years. That is counting only legal fish, not the released natives or out of season chinook (we let go at least as many as we kept this year). It is nowhere near the 96 in 2001 on the CD22, but that boat fished way better than the CD25 TyBoo. There are likely a batch of silvers outside that have yet to run into the river, so if the weather lets us we might even get a few more.

 

[TyBoo]

OK - this has been bugging me so I dug up the pictures. A while back Roger posted a picture of an 84 pound salmon caught up in Alaska. I have seen, although not caught myself, several kings in the 50 pound range, and I seemed to recall them looking bigger than the 84 pounder in the pic. Then I caught a good size fish myself - one I admittedly guessed at 35 - that weighed 29 pounds. Here are the two pictures. My question is, why is the Alaska fish nearly three times as heavy as the Oregon fish?

 

[rogerbum]

Mike - with some image analysis it's possible to estimate the length and height of both fish if we assume the the width of the hand across the knuckles is 3.5 inches for both you and the guy hold the Alaska fish (my hand is 3.5" wide at the knuckles are the base of the fingers).

From that I get the Alaska fish at 44.5" long x 12" tall and your fish at 32.8". If your hands are both 4" wide at the knuckles, I get 50.9" long and 13.7" tall for the Alaska fish and 36.7" x 9.14" for your fish. According to the Queen Charlotte Lodge blog, the Alaskan fish was measured at 51.5" long and 35" in girth. So that length would be close to my estimate assuming a 4" wide hand.

Its hard to convert a height to a girth and I can't really estimate girth easily from a 2D photo. However I can use the QCL girth measurement divided by my estimate if height to get a ratio of 35/13.7 = 2.55. That would give an estimate of 2.55 * 9.14" = 23.3" for the girth of your fish.

Now to estimate the weight, the standard formula for salmon is (length x girth x girth)/800.
For your fish that would give 24.9 lbs.
For the Alaska fish I get (using their measurements) 78.8lbs or (using my estimated length and their girth) 77.9lbs. So while I'm underestimating the weight of your fish by about 4 lbs (or 13%), I'm getting within 6-7 lbs (7%) of their estimate.

This weight calculator uses a slightly different formula and comes up with the 81.4lb estimate that QCL gave for their fish and a 25.7lb estimate for your fish (based on my estimate length/girth). Since your fish is more bent in the photo, I probably under estimated the length a bit. But bottom line, I think their fish does indeed way close to 3x what yours does.

 

[TyBoo]

That makes perfect sense, Roger. Or it could just be that the Alaska guys are advertising something and I am not.