I had out of state guests on the boat for the last two days fishing for Chinook on the Upper Columbia River. We did ok on Sunday but it wasn't until mid day Monday that I realized the fish wanted brads cut - plug super baits over the original. Once I figured this out we couldn't keep the Kings off. We fished Seahawk, blue Hawaiian, shamrock, and Jackpot all with good success. In two days we hooked 18 kings and were able to retain 8 hatchery keepers. Sunday we landed some toads. The largest weighted 22 lbs, measuring 44". We had a blast . These fish are still super bright.

As a "guide " I want my guests to be the ones doing the fishing. For this reason I removed my downriggers from the boat for this summer salmon season and switched to fishing dropper weights. This methods has some drawbacks. The main complaint I have is the difficulty level of landing salmon when one has seven feet of line out of the rod tip. It can become a circus on the boat when trying to coach a guest through the process. Some times resulting in a lost fish. Because this is a universal problem with those fishing this way I thought I would share with you a solution I'm experimenting with. There are commercial products available that can solve this problem ( Bud's Diver, or the Long Liner ). Typically when fishing droppers with a large flasher a 2-3' leader is placed on the rod side of the Flasher. This acts as a stopper for the dropper lead that is typically fished on a slider. On this outing I eliminated the short leader and tied my mainline directly to my flasher. I have attached a small release clip to my slider and lead setup. This release clip now acts as a stopper and can be clipped anywhere on the main line. (See attached photos). I never had it slip down the line and it almost always popped free when we hooked up on fish. The cool part is you can adjust the distance to your flasher when ever you want. I hope this is helpful and makes sense. Hopefully the photo helps.

I will continue to fish Chinook over the next 4 weeks between Priest Rapids and Cheif Joseph Dams. After Sep 1st I start my Fall Salmon Season near Desert Aire, WA. I have lots of available dates and would love to have your crew on the boat.

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