Fishing Astoria

We went to Astoria and I think we got it right. Lasttime we went we didn't do anything wrong we just didn't put in the time and be consitent.
We went down on Wednesday(8/19) and Saturday(8/22). Both days had great weather for Astoria, little wind and lots of boats made for rough water. Wednesday we hit a few cohos and a small chinook, it seems that most of the days fish were native Coho (bummer). Saturday we did the same and hit them hard. My boat can troll 4 poles on a good day so we put 2 poles out each side with 10oz of lead and 2 poles out the back with 8oz of lead. I think that if you get to fancy you are just giving yourself a headache so we all used moching rigs (5/4). I put a #4 spinner blade and 4 red beads on my rig, it hit a springer this year and hooked a Chinook and the largest Coho Saturday. We used anchovy and cut herring soaked in rocksalt water. We trolled infront of Warrenton in the shipping channel at about 2mph, just fast enough for the stuff to work right.
For the day we boated 3 Coho returned 4 Coho and lost 2 fish which one was a chinook.
A great day if you ask me!

crab map

oh I printed a little map and added some notes.

The yellow line is hyw 101

The shaded box if jetty fishery

The Xs are the two spots I put the traps

The red buoy is on the bottom

The train bridge is near the top

you can see a map without my note at google maps if you type in Brighton, OR

crabbing

I am one to love a crab or two. So in the spirit of the hunt a few years ago I went and bought some rings. I soon came to the opinion that that was to much work. I really like the crab traps or pots as they are called. I have crabbed a few places but lets get real I like to do it the easy way. Yesterday I went to the Nehalem bay and launched my boat at the Jetty Fishery (for $10) and went crabbing. So I took 5 traps and 1 ring as my weapons of choice. Most people seem to use the line pattern, that is they put the traps in a straight line from the ocean into the bay. Yesterday I went with the wall pattern. I went from one side of the bay to the other. I like to start 30 minutes before low tide and have the traps baited and ready to go in the water. I put the first trap 20 yards inland from the red buoy and about 10 yards toward the jetty. The next trap went 20 yards inland and about 10 yards on the opposite side of the buoy. I kept moving over 10 yards for each trap. Next I pulled the boat about 20 yards toward the ocean and anchored up in about 15 feet of water. With the anchor out we just put the ring out the front of the boat and hooked the buoy to the back for ten minutes and just pulled that one. When we were all done placing the traps it was about 5 minutes before low tide. The kids took turns pulling up the ring and it was full many times, but mostly females. After about an hour we went back for the traps, starting with the deepest one first. Would you know that that one just had a few small crabs and the bait was mostly full. As we pulled the traps in shallower water more crabs showed up. Then we moved up the the railroad bridge, placed all the traps in a straight line and went to have crab for lunch. After lunch we picked up the traps and headed for home and a scoop of ice cream on the way. For the day we only got 8 crab, 5 six inchers and 3 seven plus inchers (we weighed on at 2lbs). For the amount of effort it was a fair number but next time I am not going deeper then 20 ft.

clear lake, Mt. hood, Oregon

My favorite mountain lake is mt. hood's clear lake. From my house it is about an hour and a half drive to the boat ramp. Most days I can get there in the morning and leave by lunchtime with a limit of nice rainbow trout. There is a few brook trout in there but it is mostly a stock fishery with all levels of camping for city fokes. I think Reserve America  has the twenty plus improved camp sites for reservations.

When you fish the lake in a boat you have four main areas, dam area, the spring area, the creek area and the middle. It is not a large lake or deep lake but when the snow is good or spring rain is heavy it can be great into late summer and never count out the last two weeks of the season because the fish know it is closing(hahaha). I am going to breifly discuss each area now.

Dam area. (SE)

This is the deepest area of the lake at 16 to 24 feet depending on the water levels. The key to how you fish this is really the wind, no wind you use a standard trolling rig, with wind you anchor 20 to 30 yards from the dam and try on of the three main ways to fish most sites. 1 - bobber with 36inches of leader and a worm(my buddy always uses potskys eggs), 2 - half a once lead with rainbow powerbait(but given time most power bait flavors will work), 3 - casting roostertails or small blue foxes toward the dam, let them drop deep then bring them in slow, the fish that hit this are fewer but bigger.

Spring area(or spring arm) (North)

When you are standing at the water on the boat launch look to the right and way way way down there you will see a field of green grass, that is the spring. This works very well if you have high winds, motor up to the end of the lake(watch for stumps). Turn toward the dam and watch you depthfinder when the bottom levels out start trolling. In early june(2009) the depth was about 12 feet but normally it is 9 or 8 feet. You need to keep a good trolling speed (about setting 3 on my medium size boat or 1.1 mph) and slowly let out a lot of line(40 pulls or about 60 feet plus). ALWAYS ALWAYS set your pole down and let the spinner work(a ford fender should tap tap bump tap tap bump), this is a good thing. If your pole is pulling hard you are going to fast, if you pole is going bump nothing bump nothing then go faster now or you will catch the biggest fish "the earth", you really don't want that.

As your boat enters the wind you should turn down your trolling motor because the wind will push you. The best bite should be right where the wind gets a good ripple on the waters surface because the fish can't see you. I prefer to troll 20 yards off either shore switching each pass.

Creek area(or creek arm)(West)

From the shore line of the boat launch if you look straight across and just a little to the right you will see the lake fade into the shore and appear to go around a corner. Motor your boat up there and you will see it gets very shallow up in the end. I have seen people fly fish in the shallow area and even seen a fish caught that way. I take my boat to the gravel boat launch and setup about 40 yards off shore. I start trolling straight for the middle of the lake and after about 60 yards I slowly head left to get about 25 yards off shore. There is a spot on that shore that comes out to a point and the fish there can be the best, most of my brook trout have been caught there. Always error on the slow troll there and watch out for shore fishermen, it is the best spot in the lake to shore fish.

The Middle

You can fish the middle on all kinds of days and it is more active for metal(triple teasers, roaster tails and wedding rings). I like to start in the spring arm and troll through the middle all the way down to the dam avoiding the boat launch side of the lake. When you are directly across form the boat launch you can see mt. hood, grandma said "If I can't see mt. hood I can't catch a fish".

general rules

I only use ford fenders or a knockoff. If it is cloudy silver, if it is sunny gold. The last few trips I picked up a few split gold and silver and they have worked very well.

I use half a night crawler on a eagle claw #6 worm hook with 24inches of 6lb leader, they have a nice offset and if you are having a hard time hooking them you can take your needle nose pliers and open them up a bit. You can use metal but if you do you might never hook a brook trout, which I prefer.

I don't used weight in clear lake, it is far to shallow and spinners are running $9.00 these days.

Overall this is a great place to take the family to fish, camp and swim.