The Big Columbia River Fishing Trip...

Well, I did catch 12 feet of Sturgeon, but I didn't think it would come in 6 parts...

Have you ever checked out the Columbia River? It's a BIG fricking river. It's about 1/2 mile wide or more and the flow of water through there is amazing. We had to use 4lb of sinkers to keep the line on the bottom with little tightly wrapped up squid baits. Here is Storm with the 'setup'...




Fishing was not much fun at all. The guide was pretty good, but his boat was not what I would call comfortable or nice. It was large but totally open with 5 seats. We either fried, got rained on or froze depending upon which hour it was...




All the fish were way too small - one I caught would have made a good aquarium fish... I didn't know they had baby sturgeon. Here is the guide with a 'prize' catch...




I had never really thought about it I guess as I had never seen one under about 3 feet before. The smallest one I caught last year was 5 feet up here and the biggest was 8 feet.

The hotel and the hotel operator all sucked big time - almost to the point of humor, but not quite. Everything in the place was screwed up somehow. Our desk and three different types of legs, one of which was a 4X4 block of wood. They had DishTV but we were told that we could only press 6 buttons on the remote or her husband would get really pissed and take it away.

With all the bank fishing, we didn't get a bite and were fishing off of these 20 foot+ high cliffs. There were never any bathrooms around and my lungs were all messed up for really the first time since all the plumbing changes 5 years ago. So, I was in a 'guarded' condition and concerned most of the time - especially during the 'fun' boat 'thrill' rides. I wore my 'special' life vest, but it was still way too much boat fun for me the way I was feeling. Here I am having fun on the boat...




The guide kept saying stuff like "It was really good fishing last month - you should have been up here then", or "Later on in the summer is when we catch the big ones"... The guy that set this trip up had used the guide before and I think this whole trip was a combination of the guide needing some business and giving our guy a good deal, and our guy, who builds and services grain elevators, having some free time on his schedule. It was the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a trip of convenience for the guide and our guy, but not for anybody else...

It had its moments and just being out on such a trip with a bunch of guys was a great experience and funny at times. I got to know three new friends and we all got together well. But, on a 1 to 10 scale of overall sucking, it was a solid 8...