Buoy 10 Fish Camp

The fourth season as mariner and captain of my own vessel in the saltwater of the Columbia River estuary continued with three consecutive days of intense and productive fishing. Deer and Elk hunters setup their respective camps in the fall so on the 16th of August, Papa Dave and I setup "fish camp", which consisted of staying in an Astoria, OR motel for a few nights. After a successful "warm up" trip earlier in the week that included a boat limit of Chinook, anticipation and expectations were high for a memorable experience.

Big fish make Papa D smile!

Buoy 10 is a "tidal fishery" which means the size and timing of a high or low tide can greatly impact when a Chinook or Coho will enter the river and where they'll likely stage once in the estuary. On an incoming tide, the flow of the river is literally back upriver (which is quite the site to see) and usually brings new fish in with it. In order to maximize opportunities to put fish in the box and given the massive size of the estuary, it's critical to have a predefined game plan as well as a backup plan for each tide and location for a given day (a plan C doesn't hurt either).

At the Hammond cleaning station

Over our 3 day stay at fish camp, we landed 1 native Coho (Silver Salmon) that was released unharmed (only fin clipped hatchery Coho can be kept) and over 15 Chinook (King Salmon) keeping only our daily limit each day with most fish in the 18lb to 25lb range. As we worked the tides according to our plan, we also had to work our bait and color combinations. Earlier in the week during my warm-up trip with Bryan B, all of our fish came on herring. Interestingly, during fish camp, not one of our fish came on herring with a variety of large spinners being the bait of choice.

My fish

I never get tired of fishing with my father in-law and getting the opportunity to spend consecutive days in a fishery that's at the top of my list of favorites made it extra special. The freezer is full of candy red salmon ready for a variety of grilling and smoking recipes. Fish Camp 2013 is only 354 days away, making plans now - who's in?

1/10th of the week's catch!

Side Note...

Hawg Quest at Buoy 10

Hawg Quest is a weekly television show on the Root Sports network that covers various fishing adventures in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and BC. Interestingly, their tricked out Wooldridge sled appeared next to us and quickly had a fish on. Not wanting to look too much like a groupie, I secretly snapped this picture as they posed with my boat on camera. (Hawg Quest Website)

Easy Like Sunday Morning

The Columbia River Estuary, better known in the salmon fishing world as "Buoy 10" usually starts to fill with salmon during the first part of August and 2012 is no exception. It's still just a bit early for the mad dash up-river but the best tasting salmon known to man have started to arrive in decent numbers.

As July came to an end, my electric bow-mount-motor was stowed to make room for the big water anchor. The walleye, trout, and bass gear relinquished their designated locations in the boat and are neatly placed on the garage shelves making way for the various tackle options used to entice king/chinook and silver/coho salmon to bite.

Not bad, 10min of fishing and the first fish is bonked!

My 2012 Buoy 10 salmon seeking campaign started early Sunday morning with fishing buddy Bryan arriving at my place around 3:15am for the 2 hour boat pull to the Hammond launch, down river from Astoria, OR. Anticipation is always through the roof leading up to fishing the estuary so the drive can feel like an eternity. With a 5:30 launch time followed by 45 minutes of boat prep, bait cutting, and a boat ride out to the south side of the Desdemona sands, we dropped lines at 6:15am in 21' of water. Add 10 minutes of dragging a plug-cut herring and I had the first Chinook bonked and in the box.

Bryan with a couple nice B10 Chinook that cut candy red

By 9am with our two rods, we'd landed 4 Chinook with 5 chances, losing one on the way to the boat (naturally that was the largest of the 5). High tide wasn't until 11am so the plan was to fish for Coho through the first part of the slack but we couldn't scrape up even a native to toss back. After about an hour with no fish and the steadily increasing wind mixing up a heavy chop in the 2.5 to 3' range, we called it a day and headed back to port just after 10am; big smiles on our faces with a limit of Chinook.

Chrome bright in the sun