No sturgeon, lots of seals

TyBoo

TyBoo

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I made it out fishing a few times the last couple days. No fish, but we did see an interesting and unusual sight - 100 or more seals on the sands in the Columbia River. Lots of pups. The video quality is poor because the iPhone isn't that great of a camera and we didn't want to get too close to the critters. Desdemona Sands run for several miles in the middle of the river and are covered with water except at minus tides. I've never seen a herd of seals like this before out there.


YouTube Video
 
Mike,

Three of us paddled that stretch two weeks ago, and were rewarded with a similar site (est about 200-300 animals; very few pups then), all of them on the last major patch of sand to the S side, along with about 30 bald eagles. I have never seen more than about 50-60 harbor seals there in years past (going back to about 2003). I hope they are dining on flounder and not salmon!

BTW, we must have seen you just below the bridge, about 9:00-9:30 this morning, no?
 
I didn't go out until ~10:00 this morning, and only stayed a couple hours. Yesterday I was by the YB bridge, but today down across from the condos.

The end of the sands on the south side is where we saw the seals, too. There were so many of them we spotted them from way up river and figured it was a bunch of sea lions and almost didn't bother going down to look. They got pretty skittish when we neared the sands even though we drifted quietly the last few hundred feet. Those mama seals sure are protective of the babies. Neat to see. And yes, certainly they are eating the trash fish and leaving the salmon alone. Otherwise they wouldn't be so cute.

There seems to be more eagles around this year. Yesterday I had one sitting right atop the channel marker for YB watching me fish.
 
We were anchored up by the 205 bridge this afternoon and heard a sealion barking....I've never heard one barking in the open river up there before. They usually clear out of the Columbia by May 31st (in the Portland area, anyway).
We too have seen more eagles this year.
 
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