Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[CohoJake]

I didn't feel like adding a detailed post to the thread in general discussion, not that I have good fishing to report, but the river was busy enough without me further fanning the flames.  After mixed but mostly disappointing results in some Washington rivers over the last couple of weeks, I put a lot of effort into preparing to target summer chinook in the cheddar.  I cured up all the remaining roe in my freezer using Rodney's "no longer tricky and sticky" recipe, with the added pro-cure for color, and earlier in the week I found some cheap white prawns at Safeway, so I decided to try to pro-cure some of those as well.  I was happy with all of my bait, giving me a fair amount of confidence going into the weekend, and to top it off my dad decided to buy a couple dozen live sand shrimp. 

Got to our spot on the upper river at 4:25 (not a secret, lots of people there) slowly staked out my spot and started fishing as soon as I could almost see my float.  When I got there and before I could really see, I though the river was a little too high to fish this spot, but as the sun came up I could see that conditions were pretty perfect (much like early September in a "normal" year).  Started with cured prawn, then alternated between the other baits.  My favorite (but apparently the fish don't care for it) was a live sand shrimp with a little roe in the egg loop.  Anyway, around 5:00 a couple fish started to roll, but nothing too bright looking - hard to tell if they were springs or colored up sockeye.  Finally had a bite around 5:30 when using a cured prawn tail, just enough to feel a shake before it was gone.  Put on another chunk of cured prawn and I hooked a 14 inch resident rainbow that released itself after I got a good look near the bank. 

A couple guys next to me proceeded to hook and release a couple sockeye using wool, and I saw one other sockeye hooked before we left, but the only other action I saw was a brief strike on the last live sand shrimp.  Felt kind of like the trout strike and was near the same spot.  Later I even tried floating a jig with a without a chunk of prawn, but nothing.  In all, I can not confirm the presence of any chinook in the river, either from fish I hooked or those I saw hooked.   I'm sure they're in there, but apparently not in any numbers yet.  Hopefully the majority of fish are just late, as I have read they are late elsewhere.  That would make sense to me given the recent shift in climate pattern from El Nino to La Nina.

A big thanks to the guy who agreed to meet me at Vedder Crossing later that morning to give me some chest wader's that his son had grown out of.  My 7 year old daughter's eyes lit up when I told her they were for her.

[chris gadsden]

Went down tonight for a look and river full of sockeye and sadly the TOWers were hard at work with one chap setting the hook on every cast. A couple were fishing like all should but saw no action from them. Did not put the pole together, cleaned up some garbage and $1 in tins.

[RainbowMan]

Fished the river on both Saturday and Sunday. Water levels were good on both days and there were plenty of fresh sockeye coming in the system on the incoming tide. It's good to see that the Vedder sockeye run has been recovering over the last few years. I fished multiple runs in the upper, mid and lower and did not see anyone landing a spring or carrying a fish with them. A lot of anglers on the river but not that many fish yet. On a positive note though, most anglers that I fished with were fishing properly with short floats.

I also noticed that there are a lot of pike minnows in the lower river compared to the previous years. I was fishing a lower river run with 4 other anglers and between the 5 of us we landed 12 suckers within 2 hours!!