Okay,

I have been catching Kings in the salt for many years. I have mooching, trolling, motor-mooching, and downrigger fishing down pat. I have fished for kings in small rivers and been successful on them there.

What are some tips or tricks to catching these guys in the Columbia? I have already figured out that the tide has some effect on the quality of fishing, but what else are you willing to share?

Andy

So nobody knows how to fish for these guys?

Hey Andy,
With all of the smack being laid down I think the old timers (or is that geeezzzzeeerrrrs :p ) are being pretty tight lipped. I got to fish the mother river for them for the first time last year myself and didn't put a spankinhg on them by any stretch of the imagination but we did manage to hook a few nates and one jack that was a tasty little devil. I'd share what little I know but what I did myself last night was go into the archives over on the ifish board (lot's of local knowledge there) and did a search just using the word springers, pretty amazing how many threads came up and how much info that was shared last year. I am going to do the same here but from what I remember there was more dicussion on tech over on ifish. So spend a little time and you will learn alot.
Now as for the saltchuck action when the B'Mouth opens back up in Feb you want to get out and trade some tips??? Looks like we are damn near neighbors, I live in West Oly. If I remember right you fished with Seacat and I have been wanting to get out and fish with him also.
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff

[ 01-26-2002: Message edited by: Jeffhead ]

I had some luck last spring trolling cut plug around the mouth of the lewis.4ft.of leader with a sliding dropper with 1 and 2 ounces of weight.also u can run a sardine wrapped kwikfish on this same setup and troll or anchor up

I don't fish the big waters much but once I was with a friend who has a big boat and we were fishing Columbia and we were not catching anything except a buzz. He was using herrings and forcing (strongly encouraging) me to use it as well. I finally got bored and put a #5 vibrax? spinner (orange body) and added some weight 5 ft above the spinner to get it down and nailed a nice fish ... then another one. That day the spinners worked for me.

OK Andy, I've caught a lot of these bad boys, I'll tell you what works for me on the Columbia. I use five feet of leader with a double hook set up, I run a spreader bar off of my mainline with a three to five ounce cannon ball with eighteen to twenty four inches of drop line. I like to use whole herring, but plugged will work too. I brine my herring in rock salt, anise oil, and blue food coloring. I put the correct bend in the herring (this will take some experimentation) and then stuff a toothpick into the bait to help hold the shape..... Now here's the important part...... I troll SLOW! I'll repaet that, I troll SLOW! The slower the better. Hope this helps a bit. Go ahead and E-mail me if you have anymore questions.

Now I know what our problem was. We brined our herrings in beer

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the advice. I'll check down south for some tips. Seacat is the blackmouth king, I do better in big water and during the traditional summer seasons myself, and have only caught 2 blackmouth in 5 trips out. Anderson Island is one of my old favorite spots, but the last few years have been disapointing. I have also fished quite a bit from Shillshoal (sp?) upwards to Mukilteo. Maybe sometime we can head out. I grew up in Ken Lake and work in Lacey, so I am a still a local boy.

Jim, Feash and ZOZO,

Thanks for your input as well. I'll bring mt regular setup and maybe add a few of your tricks.

Anybody ever use downriggers and flasher, or is it just a small offering fishery?

Last spring My partner and I had 37 Springers to the boat counting natives 30 of them come on a hole herring and the other seven were on U20 Flor orange Flatfish Both were trolled as slow as we could with out stopping, both were on spliters with drop weights and make sure that weight is bouncing the bottom as your trollin may have to add weight as the current gets stonger. Good luck let me know you have any ?

Here's a little that might help...
You can fish two ways, trolling and anchored. Both of which work best on the outgoing tide. I've always preferred bait with "fresh frozen" green label herring being my favorite,I usually fish them fresh out of the pack but at times brining them in rocksalt, water, anise, and some other bite enhancers does help. I always use a cutplug and remember THE TIGHTER THE SPIN THE BETTER. I run that off a 5-6ft leader and use a 18-24" dropper depending on if I'm fishing the bottom or trolling deeper water. I prefer to fish water that is 14-24ft depending on water color. If your out in the columbia look for shallow sand flats on the inside bends of the river ie. Buoy 72 and Bachelors island as fish with take shortcuts on there migration upriver and fish the same water depths as mentioned above. Never be afraid to troll upriver and especially downriver as you will cover more water while headed downstream. If you're fishing river mouths you'll want to watch for current seams as fish tend to follow those, especially the Columbia/river mouth water as they will tend to be different colors with the river dumping into the columbia being cleaner.

If you anchor (fish have to come to you) and that's when I prefer K15 kwikfish wrapped with sardines and the types of sardines you use (different species available) does make a difference. If there's not a lot of trash fish around for instance in the mouth of the lewis I love running baitdivers and sandshrimp with a chartruese/orange dot spin glo in the size #10 again depending on water color because you will up your odds of catching the early april summer run steelhead. If waters are real clear don't be afraid to run some K12's and K13's in green pirate and blue pirate as both springers and steelhead love them and don't be afraid to troll them slowly too.

Last but not least, if you hook a springer in the columbia always be on the lookout for the harbor seals and sea lions. If they're around and get ahold of your spinger it's the fight of a life and nothing hurts worse than seeing a fricken sea lion eating the belly out of your 30+ springer...
Good luck and if you have any other questions feel free to email.
Keith

jigginjim hit it right on the nose I would it least give it a shot had lots o luck there myself

Andy,

Great question!! From my limited exposure to that fishery, I agree with ZoZo and Keith's advice.

I've done the spinners, quickfish and herring down on the Columbia, out of Kalama. Did OK on the herring, tight roll on the bait. I really didn't know about the finer points of sardine wrapping the quickfish until last year, but I'm ready to have a whack at it again this year. Got my magic thread...

Clearly, anise is a great attractant and has been recommended many times. So if I were to use any herring it would be with the anise at least.

I've considered getting the gear to hog up but so far have used my kicker to troll real slow, even back trolling when the current is really running. If you don't want to hog up you can still hook up to a piling. I've seen a lot of guys doing it catch fish. It's nice and kick back when your not trolling...I like that.

Andy, we will get to hammer some blackmouth when it opens back up. I'm gettin' the boat ready...I saw a pic the other day from 12/23/2001 at Manchester, 3 old timers had 3 nice ones, 10-12 pounders. The opener should be good. I'll get in touch...

Jeff, yeah, we've gotta get after 'em sometime. Maybe the 3 of us can hit Pt. Defiance. I've been watching my Charlie White videos again and want to test some ideas.

I may make the Flotilla, I'm penciling it in.

That anise oil, is that the same thing RT recommends?

You are getting some good info here! I too fish the herring on a 6 foot leader with an 18" dropper and 3-5 oz., and you have to drag the bottom - those springers bury their nose in the sand. I use fresh herring I jig from the Harbor, big run that time of year, and I use plug cut hog herring, bigger the better and the tighter spinning the better. And dead slow, always into the tide but backing down through the drift. Another thing I noticed is during the big runouts I just killed them out on the shallow flats - and I mean in as little as 3 feet of water - no kidding. Not only was I catching them up there but I was seeing lots of them on my sidescan sonar. What they were doing up there is anybodys guess but springers are crazy, or maybe lazy, staying out of the current?. When the tide slacked they moved back into the deeper holes.

I live down there in the spring - look for a 15 foot Smokercraft Alaskan with a big blue fish box, out where the sand meets the prop.