Notice Just returned from the Deschutes Fly Fishing club.

Aye, you caught that? What a beauty, how long did you have to reel her in? That's a tough fish there, I know they didn't give up without a fight... I bet your biceps were burning after that!

 

It's Yuuge!

 

3 hours, dove down and died deep, hand lined over 300 fathoms up onto the reel after it died
fed a lot of old folks, family and needy families. only parts we threw away were the head,tail, bones and guts and feathers

 

Tuna are like trying to catch a tractor.
Then the MOAF the sturgeon. I have taken several over 100 pounds, perhaps 150 was the biggest out of the Willamette. But I have hooked fish I simply could not catch. I managed to reel a big bugger up far enough to get a look at him. Maybe 12 to 14 feet long. When I got him up just long enough to marvel at the size of the thing, he went back down and stayed there until I cut the line
when it was dark. Should have just done it sooner, it was not legal anyway, too big. The bend in the river at Jennings Lodge on the Willamette.

 

Some pretty nice fish there sir.
I don't always weigh fish and especially when I'm camping.
I do know that my largest rainbow was also at East Lake. I would estimate it at 17 lbs or so.
Cutthroat - 7lbs. In a tiny tidal creek near Reedsport.
Lake trout - 33lbs. Yellowstone Lake.
White sturgeon - Columbia River. It was 116 inches long. Length to weight estimates put it at 480 lbs or so!
Green sturgeon - I was fishing for salmon on the Rogue river and accidentally hooked into a Green sturgeon. We had no way of measuring it or weighing it, but it was much bigger than the white sturgeon above. I had no idea what kind of fish it was until I landed it 2 and a half hours after hooking it.
Steelhead - 19lbs. North Umpqua river.
Salmon - 45lbs. Coquille river.
Smallmouth bass - 7.1 lbs. South Umpqua
Red fish- 31 lbs St. Andrews Florida in the gulf.
Spanish Mackerel - 7 lbs St. George Island Florida in the gulf.



I have caught a lot of other species, but none of any real size. I even caught a tiny Alligator Gar in Lake Caroline in Panama city Florida. It was just shy of 2 feet long which made it about a year and a half of age.

 

I love salt grilled rainbow trout with scallions, shitake mushrooms and a dash of lemon....roll it in rock salt and throw it on some nice grill over a bed of coals...great meal! I hunted mushrooms all my life....growing up in the hills of western Iowa we had huge Morells you'd find under the evergreens...rich mushrooms....in all my years here I've found 2 morels on the road a mile from my property...never found them again but I've harvested hundreds of lbs of chantrelles, gold and whites and winter chantrelles...found a giant Chicken of the Woods Mushroom a few years ago and could only fit half of it in a large framed backpack....was work packing it home of the mountain..delicious...never found one again...As to safety...the main mycology expert in Lane County died from cutting a poisonous mushroom and accidentally slicing his palm...happened quickly...to folks saying there are only a few dangerous mushrooms.....there are actually a lot of them....false Chantrelles are poisonous..Shaggy Manes are too.There are many that will destroy your liver and can damage your nervous system while you think you are just getting a stomache ache....long term...if you don't know a mushroom...don't risk it is my advice

 

That's good fertilizer...I bury those in my garden and whatever I plant on top of them thrives

 

Ooh that is a nice fish! Those are excellent eating. I doubt I ever got one over 4 lbs maybe 5.

Ha! now for the wild tale. A couple of buddies and I got some ham from the cooks on the ship, a case of San Miguel in the village and went fishing in a lagoon in the Admiralty Islands.
We didn't do all that well but when the case was nearly gone we hooked a big sucker. Friggin near dark when we drug him a shore. Shit! the beast came straight for us and we had to run like hell.
It was a crocodile. Those things can move down the beach. I was thankful I was not the slowest sailor. But we all manage to avoid the disaster the crock had in mind.

 

I caught a Wahoo about 400 miles off Cabo San Lucas on the way to Hawaii. Beautiful fish, probably about 6.5 feet long. We could not use that much fish so I let him go, did not boat him.
Using curly Tuna hooks so all I had to do was slack the line and let him throw the hook. He might have been world record size, I later found the record was 154 lbs at that time. But
I am glad I just let him go.

 

That's me. I am not sure in that area at all.

 

Haha.

 

They are and excellent test to see if Dolly Varden are in a river. err so I was told, but I don't think the other big trout would pass on the frog either.

 

Must be a special club.

Most fly fisherman I know, wear birkenstocks, eat granola, brush their teeth with all purpose soap and unequivocally vote Democrat.

 

I have seen some huge white and green sturgeon, but most of the really big ones are never landed. Not that you want to, since they can't be kept. I've seen a couple of green sturgeon on my dad's line that came to the surface that can only be described as dinosaurs. They usually do the roll right afterwards and fray the line so you don't even have to cut it.

 

Yeah, that's the picture. I can only ever remember having two really big ones on. The one above and another that I never got to move, just that pumping action on the pole for longer than I had.
Well he move maybe 50 feet, but I don't think I was even messing with his daily rounds. Just sort ignored me and my puny gear.

The biggest I ever heard of was not caught but killed blasting for the Dalles Dam. I heard it weight 2100 pounds.

 

All of that sounds about right. We've had several green sturgeon on the Rogue that just acted like a slightly moving rock and probably didn't even know they were hooked.

This is a great conversation. I'm actually staying in southern Oregon from now until end of summer and I can't wait to hit some of my old fishing spots on the South Umpqua, North Umpqua, Rogue, Cow creek, Coquille, and all of the little lakes in between. It's going to be a fun and relaxing few months.

 

I plan to have the MarAzul in the Columbia for salmon fishing a couple weeks in August. I hope there is a run this year. I think I will take the easy route and just mooch on the tides
from buoy 10 to the church hole near the bridge on the North side. Drop anchor in behind sand Island or near the North shore when not fishing.

 

umm, I don't think I personally know any that do.