WILD BLOG: The Columbia River "grand slam", and beating "drive-bys"
NEW July 14, 2009 / 8:30 a.m

We had an outstanding combo trip yesterday!

Jimmy and Harold from Tigard and Jerry from Texas joined me on a quest for a Columbia River"grand slam".

First we met before daylight in Hammond for Jimmy to bait his crab pots with some fresh tuna heads I picked up the day before.

After a quick detour to drop the pots, we headed out to sea. In less than two hours we hooked about 20 coho, landed about 15 and headed in with our eight hatchery silvers.

Then it was back to pull the pots. I wondered if they had been in long enough, since we caught our fish so fast, but found out there should have been no worries. Fresh tuna is hard to beat for crab bait: 14 nice keepers!

Then it was back upriver to try our hand at sturgeon. Unfortunately the sturgeon bite was a little off, but we did get a handful of them - no keepers but some good fighters that fooled us.

It was good to see Jerry catch his first sturgeon (after he caught his first salmon earlier in the morning) 

Since these guys dug their limit of razor clams the day before, they're going to have one heck of a sea food platter.

The coho mojo: Ocean fishing has been “off the hook” for coho salmon. We have been easily getting limits within two hours of fishing.

Talk to anybody who's done some offshore coho fishing, and you will hear about “drive bys”. They are very common. There are a few ways of cutting these down, converting some of these missed opportunities - I stress S-O-M-E of them ... you'll always have some drive-by’s. It’s the nature of the fishery. 

Not only are there small fish out there but also the nature of coho on a feeding frenzy is to slash and kill baitfish. Many times this behavior simply knocks the bait off the hook.

While ocean fishing, like many other fisheries I fish in, you gotta have some give. Actually, since offshore coho have softer mouths, it’s even more important. There are a few ways you can achieve this: A soft rod, monofilament line or a Salmon Bungee. 

I prefer softer rods, favoring the G-Loomis SAR 1084C and SAR 1265C. These rods are made for fishing herring. They have the length and give to allow a fish to take the bait to the bank. I've been using these rods for years and they've accounted for a tremendous amount of bites converted to fish.

If you're using a stiffer rod, try mono or a Bungee. I don’t like using mono because after catching several fish and the strain from the diver’s pull, the line can get stretched out and weakened. 

Use a red bungee for silvers and a chartreuse one for Chinook.

But these remedies don’t do justice for a fine herring rod.

Anti drive-by bait: Then there’s the bait fish. Or more specifically, the bait. I have heard so many people rave about using fresh bait, but in my opinion, the bait we have available is too soft. Soft bait gets ripped off during a drive-by.

That's why I always use frozen herring. Frozen herring are starved before they're packed and frozen.  Fresh herring are not. In the starving process, the fish use up their stored fat, and fat is soft. After the fat is used up they start to absorb their scales, which further toughens them up.

And speaking of bait ...:  One feeding habit of salmon, like other predators of fish, is to eat their food headfirst. They like to grab a bait fish by the head. This is why I like to keep the space between the hooks of my mooching rigs fairly close together.

Although I always carry bait and usually always run a rod or two with bait there may be something better when the bite is on: HARDWEAR. Spoons are the most common lures I’ll use.  Coyotes, Tom Macks and LG Johnson spoons. With a lure on there you may get hit with a drive-by, but you're still fishing, no worries.

Get the junk out:  When I’m fishing salmon offshore I usually leave off the flashers. It’s just more junk for a coho to drag around, and many times they’ll swim faster than you can reel that stuff in. You'll get slack and, “pop”,  they’re gone.

And lastly, don’t forget to have sharp hooks!

-DJ