Salmon is one of the best-eating fish, and we’ve some of the best salmon in the world right here in the Pacific Northwest.
Whether it’s springer salmon, a June Hog, bright coho or Chinook straight out of the ocean, or up the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam in the Columbia River Gorge.
Salmon is amazing to catch and incredible to eat and loaded with healthy omega-3 fatty acids. This omega-3 is not from a bottle, but natural and straight from the ocean or the river!
I’ve been catching these incredible fish now since I was about four years old.
Join me and I’ll show you how – where to find them, the tackle and bait, and how to bring home the best tasting fish you’ve possibly ever eaten!
The omega-3 fatty acids people chase down the supplement aisle, EPA and DHA, are already in a wild Pacific salmon. A fillet like this one is dense with them, and it arrives the way nature packaged it: alongside complete protein, vitamin D, and none of the oxidation, fillers, or mystery sourcing that ride along in a capsule. This is the original, not an extract.
Fish you pulled from the river yourself, bound for your cooler as fillets like these, which I prepare dockside, its origin no longer a label you have to trust but a morning you actually lived.
Wild salmon from the Pacific Northwest eats better and nourishes better than anything you can pull out of a jar, and it carries a story a softgel never will. Book a trip, and your omega-3s arrive fresh, whole, and traceable to the exact stretch of water they came from. That is fish the way it’s meant to reach your table: caught, not bottled.
Spring Chinook
If you only fish once a year, make it a springer. Pound for pound it’s some of the best table fare you can get and is loaded with the oils and fats that make a Chinook off the BBQ unforgettable. That’s why people call me about springers in the spring.
When and where: I start on the Columbia at the end of March and run it until it closes (usually the first couple weeks of April).
Then it’s the Willamette through mid-May, the mouth of the Wind River on the Washington side for a short two-week window, and back to the Columbia in spurts from mid-May to June 15.
Bigger fish, harder fighting, in one of the most beautiful stretches of river there is.
When the season opens – usually June 16 through June 30 – summer Kings come through the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam in the Columbia River Gorge.
These are bruisers. If you want a big King that still tastes amazing, this is the trip.
It’s essential that you call me for availability and season updates as these dates can vary and the season changes depending on the salmon run and the quantities of salmon counted at the dam.
Fast, wild, fish-everywhere. Fishing out of Hammond/Warrenton, near Astoria.
From August 1 through about September 2, Buoy 10 is on. This is the big show – fall Kings and coho arriving into the Columbia River. Fish coming over the rail many days, legal limits common. If you want non-stop action, this is it.
Here’s something most clients don’t know: I don’t just sit on the line at Buoy 10. It’s all about the tide. On a hard outgoing (minus) tide, the fish get pulled out past the buoy, and Buoy 10 is the deadline, the first place you can legally sit and catch them as the tide turns and washes them back in.
So we work it: catch what we can, run back a mile and a half, hold, and let them come to us again. I fish from Buoy 10 all the way up to Tongue Point, past Astoria, depending on where the fish are.
Enjoy the tail end of the season in big water with big scenery. Fall is in the air and the fish are bright and fresh and ready to pop in the boat for you to enjoy later that day.
Right after Buoy 10 wraps – from roughly September 3 to October 20 – I’m back up the river chasing fall kings and coho below Bonneville Dam, and up at Hood River, Drano Lake, and the mouth of the Klickitat.
This is a spectacular time of year, and the end of summer and start of fall season is a fantastic time to enjoy this part of the breathtaking Columbia River Gorge.
Up in the Gorge, where we fish on a given day often comes down to the wind. I’ve seen windsurfers take off into the air while a Bald Eagle or an osprey snags a big fish out of the water.
Every salmon season is different and the scenery at this time of year is incredible.
