Big Fish

Went to The Dalles, Oregon for a little sturgeon fishing this weekend. My friend Marc lives in TDs and knows all there is to be knowed about sturgeon fishing. He had caught a bunch of shad ahead of time for this event. Shad run by the millions up the Columbia in June and the great white sturgeon keg up under the dams to eat the unfortunate shad that get chewed up in the generator gatewells by giant turbine blades. For some reason Marc had always discarded the shad heads when cutting baits out of the narrow, bony fish. I asked why the sturgeon wouldn't bite on heads so we tried some and discovered that sturgeon like head too. He froze some shad heads in vacuum pack plastic. We got lots of mileage out of having to give the sturgeon head to get a bite. White sturgeon get huge. The biggest one I have ever caught was probably ten feet or a little longer. You are only allowed to keep one a day about four feet long. A four foot sturgeon is not very exciting to catch. Marc knows all the holes and how to fish them upstream and down from The Dalles Dam. June has been very cold and wet around TDs this year which regularly achieves 100 degree days. We were out early Friday morning in Marc's 25 foot boat. I boated a seven footer without too much effort. Marc released it with his needle nose pliers. The wind rose in volume as it blasted up the Columbia River Gorge. We don't use the word "wind" when fishing. If you say it, the wind always increases in volume. So we say; "The boardheads are happy." When the wind decreases, we say: "The boardheads are sad." Hood River, 20 miles down river, is the sailboarding capital of the US if not the world. We caught a couple more way too big sturgeon. When a giant jumps out of the water I like to holler: "He breaches!" like Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. We didn't catch any keepers or too small fish by noon so we trailered the boat at the public boat landing. Thje fish checker was in our face wanting to know what we had caught. We went back to Marc's garage apartment where we ordered a Chicago stuffed pizza from Papa Murphy's. I drove down to the pizza parlor and took delivery and we baked in the oven of Marc's garage apartment. In this day and age, many parents have adult children "basement dwellers" living in their garage or basement. Marc is different in that he lives in the garage while his son, daughter in law and grandson live in the house. When company comes, you just assemble a one by two meter Cabela's folding cot to crash on. We ate our pizza and took a nap. Marc's two year old grandson and the yellow lab he shares with his son's family both came out to visit. Around five o'clock we decided to hit it again. You don't have to go very far to the boat ramp and the fishing hole we were using was only a mile upstream. I drove the truck and Marc idled around in the boat while I parked the rig at the top of the hill. We charged upstream and I dropped the anchor. I dropped a fresh shad head on a big hook over the side when I noticed the back of the boat was filling with water. Oh shit! Marc had plugged the wrong drain hole with the screw tight rubber plug at the boat ramp. I frantically plugged the hole from the inside with paper towels while Marc fired up the bilge pump. We raced back to the ramp and I got the truck and we pulled the boat out of the water and let a ton of water drain out the nickle sized hole in the back of the boat. I told Marc that I got a pass on any comments on my performance as a deckhand from this day forward. We got back to it and hooked a few more monsters. One was so big that we chased it with the boat and I couldn't do a thing to influence the big fish. Couldn't slow it or turn it or make it jump. I finally broke the line and we went back and found our cast off anchor line by the floats on the end. I made fast and we fished untill just before dark. A hefty eight foot sturgeon wanted some head and I wrestled him to the boat without casting off. It took a good 45 minutes. He possibly weighed 250 pounds or more. Marc released him and we called it a night. We turned on the running lights and avoided one fool who didn't believe in running lights. Saturday morning we were hard at it. Marc caught a 41 inch legal fish! It sure wasn't very exciting after muscling in eight footers. We bagged it around noon. The boardheads were grinning and the rain was pouring down like in the Willamette Valley in December. Marc let me off and I hiked up the hill to get the rig. I saw the fish counter sitting in her little PU and motioned her to roll down the window. I told her we caught a bunch of too big fish and one keeper thinking it would keep her out from underfoot. Wrong. She wanted to see the fish. I told her it was 41 inches. Still wanted to see the damned fish. Next time, I will tell her we just caught a bunch of too bigs. There were trailers and rigs parked everywhere as it was Saturday and the last day of keep a sturgeon season. I had to carefully jack back the fifty foot outfit up, being careful not to hit the motorhome some moron had parked behind the trailer. It rained harder. I backed down the ramp and Marc drove the boat onto the trailer. I winched it tight and pulled it up the hill, parking on an incline to let the water run out the drain hole after I removed the plug. The fish counter was there and made us stand in the pouring rain while she measured the sturgeon and looked for tags. Marc made beer batter and fried up some bits of tasty sturgeon. The smaller ones taste better than the big ones. We chowed down and took a nap and then I rolled for home. I have my 19th wedding anniversary tomorrow and my last week at the salt mines starting Monday. Might go halibut fishing next weekend if the weather cooperates. N