06-16-2006, 06:58 PM
I made a quick trip to Portland to fish with a friend on Monday and Tuesday. Monday we flyfished on the colombia for Shad. I had never tried this before and would recommend it to anyone. The shad are coming up the rive by the thousands. It was fun to hook the 2-4lb fish. They fought hard in the shallows and took about anything. I believe they are a member of the tarpon family and they have that kind of an appearance.
On Tuesday we went with a guide and started the day by catching shad for bait. I have fished for a lot of big fish and this was the biggest bait fish that I have ever used. We were fishing for the really large "oversized" sturgeon so we used the whole shad for bait. It was a slow day. My friend has gone out many times and he says they ususually boat 4-6 big sturgeon a day. We hooked into a big one early but being rookies we did not set the hook well and the sturgeon went airborn then the hook came free. What a thrill to see 200+ lbs of fish out of the water. We caught several small "shakers" in the 6-10 lb range and finally I hooked into the one I had been looking for. It didn't fight much more then a log at first. Then it saw the boat and went crazy. It took all my line back out and then some. We chased it up and down the river for about 35 minutes. Finally we got it up to the boat and turned over. They have a limp reflex that makes them go limp if you can turn them over. We got the hook out and took pictures. It was 7 1/2 feet long. I know there are much bigger fish in there but I was happy and will go back sometime to try for the 10'+ fish that are in there.
By the way that one fish made my muscles cramp and gave me a really sore back but I am not complaining[
].
Good Luck
Windriver
[signature]
On Tuesday we went with a guide and started the day by catching shad for bait. I have fished for a lot of big fish and this was the biggest bait fish that I have ever used. We were fishing for the really large "oversized" sturgeon so we used the whole shad for bait. It was a slow day. My friend has gone out many times and he says they ususually boat 4-6 big sturgeon a day. We hooked into a big one early but being rookies we did not set the hook well and the sturgeon went airborn then the hook came free. What a thrill to see 200+ lbs of fish out of the water. We caught several small "shakers" in the 6-10 lb range and finally I hooked into the one I had been looking for. It didn't fight much more then a log at first. Then it saw the boat and went crazy. It took all my line back out and then some. We chased it up and down the river for about 35 minutes. Finally we got it up to the boat and turned over. They have a limp reflex that makes them go limp if you can turn them over. We got the hook out and took pictures. It was 7 1/2 feet long. I know there are much bigger fish in there but I was happy and will go back sometime to try for the 10'+ fish that are in there.
By the way that one fish made my muscles cramp and gave me a really sore back but I am not complaining[
]. Good Luck
Windriver
[signature]