It was another great day in the Pacific Northwest fishing the Columbia River. Today Aaron and I again joined guide Bruce Warren (www.FishingForFunGuideservice.com) and fished outside the mouth of the Klickitat in the Columbia. We fished from 8am to 2pm, starting the day out hoover fishing, and switching to trolling mid-morning. Hoover fishing netted me a brief hook up and a couple other bites, but overall it was kind of slow so we decided to switch to trolling. It was ultimately a good choice.

There was a pretty good bite mid to late morning, and we saw fish being caught and netted, but for us we couldn’t buy a bite for the longest time until we swapped the gear and tried a pair of hevi-beads and a cheater with blade, with a big gob of eggs. Within a few minutes my rod doubled over and I was on to a nice fish. He took line and gave me a nice 50 yard run before slowing down. I worked him back to the boat and eventually Bruce put the net around a beautiful bright 20 pound king!

The fishing definitely picked up today and there are some real pigs out there waiting to be caught.

We capped off the day with some presentations from product manufacturers at Ed Iman’s Fish Camp. The Pike Minnow program rep, reminded us that this year the pike minnow reward program is paying $5 to start and up to $8 per fish here on the Columbia. John Cleveland of Eppinger Lures gave us a talk on his products – the world famous daredevil (I grew up catching pike in Wisconsin with this lure), as well as the red eye, osprey, and rex spoon. Check them out at www.eppinger.net. Hook and Cord presented their great bungie cord adaptations, truly unique and functional. They also carry Atals gloves, a really nice assortment of nitrol and rubberized gloves that are of benefit to anglers. Check them out at www.hookandcord.com for more information.

Finally, Mack’s Lures gave us a run down on their excellent products, including smile blade jigs for walleye fishing, and the new U/V. smile blades that change multiple colors are truly amazing, by the way. Double D dodgers of course, so effective for kokanee fishing will be coming in more colors than ever. Sll the Msacks products are great fish catching additions.

We’ll be giving away many of these products to readers of NWFR in the months to come. Post your fishing reports for your chance at winning these great products in our monthly contest!

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