Last summer while guiding in Alaska I met a fellow fish nut by the name of Wade Taylor, he was working as a deckhand for the same company I worked for. We went on a few adventures including; catching dog sharks from shore, flipping for sockeye, anchoring for silvers and rowing the Kenia in a drift boat.
I love having friends all over the country and am always happy to offer trip swaps with a Minnesota adventure for one in a distant land. Wade and I got to talking and he invited me out for the salmon opener on the Columbia River in eastern Washington. I have always wanted to fish the Columbia after hearing stories of monster walleye, salmon and sturgeon so we made a plan. I had driven out to Helena to visit my brother and his home in Spokane was only about a half day’s drive. I had arrived on a Thursday and we spent the evening packing up his drift boat and getting the gear ready including fabricating a depth finder transducer pole at midnight while his brother replaced the radiator in a VW.
We left the following morning from Spokane and drove north past the Grand Coulee Dam and up to Chelan Washington. Chelan and Manson are in a beautiful area surrounded by orchards and vineyards, all of the campgrounds were full so we drove up into the hills and found some national forest land to camp on. After getting our camp set up we drove down to lake Chelan and trolled for lake trout, we found some pike minnows and rainbow trout instead but it was a fun evening on the water.
The following morning the salmon opener, we drove down from town to the Columbia and launched at Beebe bridge park, there were boats everywhere. There were all sorts of boats and everyone worked in the same traffic pattern using shortbus 360 dodgers and spinners or Brads clamshell baits, Wade fills the baits with canned tuna an a variety of scents. It didn’t take us long before I caught a nice Chinook to start off the weekend.
We heard good reports from the early birds and watched plenty of fish get boated. Later that morning the bite slowed down so we pulled the plug and went upstream to the Wells Dam. Wade caught a sockeye and a native Chinook that had to be released.
The following day we started back out at the Beebe bridge and I caught a nice keeper while the sun was rising. We cooked coffee in the boat and headed back to Well’s dam once the bite slowed down again.
It proved to be a good move the the dam had a few more flood gates open and although the waves were more than I was comfortable with, the fishing was great. Wade caught his personal best king while bouncing up and down in big waves, I also got a native Chinook that had to be released and we landed a bonus sockeye that escaped the stringer.
All said it was a fantastic trip and I’d like to thank Wade for all of his hospitality and I’m looking forward to repaying the favor in my neighborhood!
