I've only been out a couple half days practicing for this Saturday's Flotilla IV in the Columbia (not that Oreos need practice of course ). Fishing should be better up this way by now. Early last week and today, both days I only had a couple hard take downs landing one spring chinook each time, and losing the bait on the other take downs. And one also landed by Bobber Down's friend on the earlier trip with me. But I expect with some rain warming and coloring up the big river a little bit that the fishing should really turn on by this weekend. It's time!

I will give some of you Wassies a little help by showing you one of the top secret rigups to use:
[img]http://pic5.picturetrail.com/VOL87/506747/693486/8738322.ptp[/img]

And showing you what a springer looks like (from today):
[img]http://pic5.picturetrail.com/VOL87/506747/693486/8738402.ptp[/img]

Pictrail server isn't always on, so if they aren't showing above access this new pic album (photopoint went belly up):
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=693486&uid=506747&members=1

It's up to you to figure out what to put on it, where to troll it, how deep to troll or anchor it, and how much action to put on it.

See you out there near St. Helens, mouth of the Lewis, and the following 3:00 p.m. Sand Island party this Saturday. Light showers may help the bite, so don't shy away from the clouds. There are big covered picnic areas on the island for us to use if the sun doesn't break thru.

RT

RT,

You've been so helpful in the past with your pics of plugs, and tips. What's up with your zipperlip spinner. How about a close up, and how it was fished. Team Hocus Pocus wasn't able to pull any springers out of our hats last weekend when we made our practice run. Everyone around us was puttin' fish in their boats using a variety of different gear. Which we tried. But, to no avail. We may have been fishing under them though?

What kind of rig is that? No fair warming up on your home court before we get down. You better put that fish in the fridge and save it for Saturday. :p

18'

#5 Vibrax Char w/ goldleaf (looks like you my have added something to it)

SLOWWWWW

Naaaasssee Feeeeeesssshhhh RT,
The Giz, my Dad and I were out there practicing for the F4 yesterday too. 4 missed takedowns, 1 clipped 8 lb'er that went in the box and 1 nate that was 20 plus that we sent on it's way. All on one rod and Kfish. All off of Sand Island. We saw about 15 hookups around us including ours. River surface temp was 48 degrees with about 2 ft. of vis. See ya out there Saturday.
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff

O.K. I've seen RT's secret spinner first hand and saw it kill a spring nook last week while I dragged an anchovie around. RT maybe sign a legal document not to publically divulge any of his springer secrets till after F4 .

However, if someone has open spot on their boat for F4 this saturday, and wouldn't mind me tagging along (especially if your leaving from the Seattle area) you would probably get me to spill my guts . Yes RT, I'm a cheap fishing whore that can be bought.

BD

Cyclops; a Tacoma Wassie: There's an obvious correlation to your difficulties Cy'. You guys are Wassies! Muh ha ha ha ha ha. I'll try to dig up some of my springer tip posts with the search feature and post them for you - on Sunday? (jk)

Use the search feature and read my column in the current April/May issue of STS for good tips to use during F4. Just remember though, sometimes out on the BIG river it comes down to luckily getting your bait or lure in front of a biter chinook. There's a lot of water and fish routes out there in that huge river, and they don't use the same ones every day or even every hour. As you experienced, I've seen hoglines that are hot on one end and the next day the other end is hot. Or one day they all get fish and the next day nobody gets any. These fish move more erratically than the Columbia fall 'nook runs, so sometimes you can be on a pod of them in an area and sometimes you are fishing between groups of fish. If your area doesn't come on in an hour or two, move a few miles up or down the river - watching for fighting fish getting netted, or asking fishers how it's been in there area. If you ask 3 different boats a ways apart you should come up with a fairly reliable answer as to the action that's been going on. Move until you find the pods of spring chinooks, and use those techs you find that I've given you and you should do fine. Good luck.

As for that spinner rig, it was one of the newer hammered brass blades, all brass back with green tip rainbow pattern on the front, put on the leader with a plastic leader clevis on top of 6 small beads. Sometimes in murkier water I will use these blades with a 1/4" hole drilled or punched in the lower center to add more curiosity noise for the fish. I fished my custom twirling prawn rig-up with it. This rig up gives it a much more appealing erratic spin than the stock spinner/prawn rigs - as Bobber Down will show the guys he goes with.

Looking forward to seeing ya Jeff. Let's try to fish the same line and/or trolling areas so I can trash talk your 'trashy' crew coming with you (Dan, 'Yall, and Os). See ya Saturday. Bring some raingear.

RT

Rt ...up to his old tricks again

don't worry all you Washington Studs

Rt does all his catching before Floatilla's
.............Os

Team Capital Punishment
will be spanking some Oreo's....... :p

here is one of several we caught today. # 15 kwikfish with a sardine wrap. silver with red tip.
saw several more boated

Thanks RT! Obviously this Wassie needs all the help he can get. We'll try practacing our magic act Friday. And we'll see ya Sat.