bass
After having a bit of a late start I decided to hit the Willamette for sturgeon. I ended up catching 10 total with about 1/2 of them being about legal sized, attached is a pic of one of the better ones. That fish put up a great fight and made 2 jumps. The first was an amazing porpoise like jump where it came out at about a 45 degree angle cleared the water by a couple of feet and landed back in nose first. The jump probably covered a good 6 feet or so. The second jump was right at the kayak. He came up fast towards the rear of the kayak when I lifted my rod up and back to keep tension I knocked my spinning rod in the river (no leash on that rod). I could not believe it - I think he knew what he was doing 
I did learn something interesting I lost at least 1/2 dozen fish today. At one spot I was marking fish right under the kayak so I threw a tiny bit upstream and let the bait drift so that I was fishing pretty much straight up and down. I hooked 6 fish and lost them all, plush I missed another 1/2 dozen or so. I think that it is really hard to hook fish with a circle hook in this situation. I think what might be happening is that as I started to reel I would lift the sinker up off the bottom, without getting enough horizontal pull on the leader to get the hook to catch. Whatever the reason, I will not be doing this again. When I re-anchored upstream a bit and threw downstream I had no problem hooking fish.
The day on the water was nice. There were quite a few boats fishing for springers but I did not see any caught. I spoke with the sheriff and he said in going up and down the river he had only heard of two that were caught. This was about midday.
Thus, in summary it was a great day to be out on the water, I caught plenty of fish, I learned something, but I lost a rod. Still a huge net positive by my account.
I did learn something interesting I lost at least 1/2 dozen fish today. At one spot I was marking fish right under the kayak so I threw a tiny bit upstream and let the bait drift so that I was fishing pretty much straight up and down. I hooked 6 fish and lost them all, plush I missed another 1/2 dozen or so. I think that it is really hard to hook fish with a circle hook in this situation. I think what might be happening is that as I started to reel I would lift the sinker up off the bottom, without getting enough horizontal pull on the leader to get the hook to catch. Whatever the reason, I will not be doing this again. When I re-anchored upstream a bit and threw downstream I had no problem hooking fish.The day on the water was nice. There were quite a few boats fishing for springers but I did not see any caught. I spoke with the sheriff and he said in going up and down the river he had only heard of two that were caught. This was about midday.
Thus, in summary it was a great day to be out on the water, I caught plenty of fish, I learned something, but I lost a rod. Still a huge net positive by my account.
