Salmon Fishing with Eric Swanson

Hey, what's up everyone out there. Thank you so much for tuning into another addicted fishing podcast. We got someone here in the studio that you guys have been commenting and asking where he's at. I've been wondering the exact same thing, but he's here sitting right next to me. Right now. We got Mr. Eric Swanson. And yes, I am. He's came and joined us on a podcast and a live feed tonight. You betcha. Talk about some salmon, huh? That's right. Talking about some salmon and just real quick. If Marlon and I's voice sound really tired and really worn out and really throaty because the last few days we've been fishing in an absolute freaking snow storm, but catching a few steelhead might've been some yelling might've been some excited moments, but it was pretty epic and we filmed it all for you guys. I cannot wait for this video. It's going to be a cool video. So, I mean, besides the fish catching so much other stuff, we're not going to tease it out there, but if you kind of wonder why we're kind of there may or may not be another prank coming. Let's just say that it was so, and we got someone so good, so dirty. It was how a prank should be. Exactly. It was how a prank should be. It was planned out perfectly and executed perfectly. 10 out of 10. But yeah, so we're just, we're hot off the traffic of Portland and in the studio, but we got here for Mr. Swanson. Oh yeah. So how'd the springer season go, dude? Because I saw tons of pictures and tons of killing. Yeah, it was, I would say it was probably better than, you know, other seasons. You know, the last couple of days out there was absolutely phenomenal and it was really sad to see it end, you know, right when the fish showed up. Cause I remember the week before it was like, Oh, one fish here, one fish there. Then the last couple of days, it was how springer fishing should have been. I remember that first pass in the morning on Wednesday, dude, I called you and you're like, Oh my gosh, we got four dead. And at that point I was one for four and I'm like, Oh, this is insane. They're all over the graph. We're just hooking them left and right. It was dirty. It was really cool. But that's that's classic though. You know, we're only allowed to kill, I think this year it was only like 5,100 fish. Like by the time they, and that's what we're talking about tonight, guys. We had our fall, fall salmon seasons announced, um, just, uh, last day or two PSMFCs done North Falcons done. The guidelines are out. So, um, there's going to be some like regulatory like changes coming up, but like for the most part, we know the seasons now and that's what we would kind of want to delve into a little bit with Mr. Swanson. Cause everyone's wanting to talk, you know, salmon, it, it is supposed to be spring, but it's not really spring. Four inches of snow. The other day is the snow, but you know, that's what we're talking. We're talking salmon with one of the best strollers on the Columbia river. But yeah, that day was epic. That was a fun, that was a cool day. But unfortunately, because we kill a thousand fish a day at those last couple of days, and we only allowed 5,000, it goes quick, goes early. Yeah, it does. But at least, you know, we made it happen. We had some really good days mixed in with some tough days, but I would say overall, it was a good season. Better than last year. Yeah. You bet better than last year. You know, we had a little current through the tides. Yeah. We had another year where the slack tides really didn't produce a lot of fish, but then when you got current that actually channelized them and kind of moved them into the spots that you could get at them, we got at them. Yeah. Some of those mornings where you had like a nine or 10 o'clock high tide. And so like the first two or three hours were kind of like slack frogwater. Oh my gosh. You'd mark them anywhere from the bottom to, you know, 15, 20 feet off the bottom. It's just really hard to target fish when they weren't like, you know, pushed to the bottom and to the sides, like in normal years with some higher water. Right. And Columbia was pretty clear, but it wasn't fall clear. And so when you had fish that were suspended up and you had to put it on their nose, but it's a lot easier to put them on the nose when they're all on the bottom. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We know right where they're at, but, but good season, you know, now we're kind of moving into the Willamette and that kind of a thing. So should, is it going to fish good this year? Yeah, it will. It will definitely. And it has been, you know, the first couple of weeks of April in the years have always kind of been tough, but the, you know, the last week and a half has actually been pretty good. So I'm hoping that's a sign for good things to come. Yeah. I can tell you like in, you know, usually there's a, you know, a little bit of a dull period, like right after the Columbia close, it seems like it takes like a week or two to fire up, but we've heard and seen some, some good, really good numbers. Uh, not to mention for at least the last time I checked the dam count at that point in time, I think we only had like 1100 fish over, this was like three or four days ago, but we were beating the 10 year average over Bonneville. Some of our tributaries, we've been talking about this a few times in some of the podcasts and live feeds, but, um, you know, some of the tributaries hydro project received springers, uh, earlier than they'd ever had in existence. And, uh, some of the tributaries are kicking out fish already, like above and below dams, good things to come. Like, so I'm on this text string with about five other, my guide buddies there. And, uh, so I've been at the coast the last two days with my girlfriend, just kind of on a little vacation after I fished for like 20 days in a row, just kind of getting, getting back on her good side. And, uh, anyway, so one of my buddies killed seven in the Willamette the other day, like I'm sitting at the coast, like, Oh, I'm just, I'm sitting there like at the coast, like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? So anyways, what are you doing? You're getting ready for like people. A lot of people think that when that Columbia season is like, it's over and it's like, no, that's like the first 25% of the season, really? Like it's just starting, like I kind of go back tomorrow and as long as I don't get canceled on and I'll do like another 16 or 17 days in a row and, you know, kind of that thing. So getting back into it, excited, good fish numbers, good catch numbers, good weather. Hopefully. I was just trying to pull up the Willamette turbidity. It's starting to spike a little bit. It's starting to spike. So I was going to ask like, so what's, so what's Mr. Swanson like going to go for? Are you going to get on the three 60 game or still the triangle? So, so last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I ran three sixties and Friday and Saturday I did better than everybody else. And on Sunday that turbidity had spiked and it had moved down to where I've been at. And, and I kind of got my butt kicked a little bit on Sunday because, you know, the visibility went from like, definitely visibility temperature was the exact same, but the, uh, the turbidity went from like four to seven. And so, you know, my visibility went from like three and a half down to two and that, that killed my bike. No doubt about it. You know, I know another angler that, yeah, he killed six one day. They only killed one the next. So like Zach, same situation. Yeah. Wondering if the, and you know, he, he's three 60 till the day he dies. Right. But, uh, I mean, well, unless something else comes around that catches more fish than a three 60 than a short bus, three 60. I don't know what it is, but yeah. So maybe that that's the number. So take that, put that in your notes, kids, four to seven, four to seven, the whole I have a turbidity. That's kind of your magic. It might be the sweet spot, but then the big guys got them. Yeah. Then the big guys to get them. And I was, you know, getting phone calls and getting pictures. I'm like, Oh my gosh. But you know, I kind of was just sticking to the program where I got him the day before and you know, kind of didn't pan out. But that also is springers. I mean, that is springers. I mean, shoot. I had a day, like three weeks ago in Columbia. I had five. I'm like, yeah, it's starting up. And the next day I had like one bite and they just weren't there. You can go from zero to hero in, you know, 24 hours, basically 12 hours. Oh yeah. Yeah. Hero to zero and zero to hero. That's right. But no, I mean, it should be pretty good. I mean, I think there was 40, a little less than a little more than 40,000 last year, the prediction was 50,000, but they ended up with 40. Right. Um, but you know, I think as this season carries on and we keep seeing these good fish numbers, um, you know, there's opening, there's, there's openings up on, on, on the, I'm just going to say at the callus and the wind and not that they're significant now, but those were closed last year seasons and they are open this year. So maybe people get spread out and get some opportunity. So when you start, you know, you're later on spring or season here after you get on wall efficient, are you going to go up to the wind or are you going to stick to the limit? All depends on that magic damn count. I don't need to go nowhere until that damn count tells me to. Right. And that's what's, that's the beauty of it. Um, some of those fisheries. And then also to like, as we start to see some of the, the Oregon city counts and stuff like that, catch up a little bit, even though granted a lot of times, you know, in some fisheries, when you're seeing the damn counts good, then you've already missed it. Right. You know, for sure. You've got to kind of watch them pretty close, like anticipate when it's going to spike and all that. So you'll kind of just move around depending on what the damn counts are. Yeah. When I book trips in April and may, I tell them, I go, these are our options plan on going here and we will go wherever it's best. Exactly. Cause we can get a big rainstorm. Just plan on and knock, knock the lemon out for two weeks. Yeah. So for sure. Which kind of a game we play, which might be coming up here, you know, after all the snow melts in the lower Valley, I talked to my good buddy Cody Herman and, uh, and so he was down in the Willamette area, uh, day before yesterday, he said the coastal fork of the limit was blown out chocolate mud. Oh, really? Yep. So I'm kind of waiting to see that wall of, and I don't know. So, you know, obviously the turbidity is spiking right now, so I don't know how high it's going to spike, but I have a feeling that's, that's kind of what we're seeing coming down now. Well, when we just got this random, like, you know, April snow apocalypse, all of a sudden it dumped a lot of snow. Yeah. The mountains, especially at home. Yeah. And it's supposed to be, I think, 70 degrees next week. Yeah. So what's that going to do? It's going to bring everything up and it's going to cool everything off too. Yeah. I did hear the Columbia, you know, some, some of our walleye guys doing some walleye fishing, uh, they said it's dropped two degrees on that east side in the last like three days, actually kind of cooled the bite off a little bit. Cool. The post spawn while I bite off, but, but yeah, I mean, either way, there's the, the springer rundown you'll fish springers. What? Until mid June. So like, yeah. Until I start summer Chinook fishing. So yeah. Until like the first week of June, basically, and then we'll start switching over and speaking of summer Chinook, we just got our season set just today. What do you think about that? Well, so I had to call a lot of people, shoot a lot of text messages to, uh, to kind of let them know that, let them know that their date was going to have to be a, you know, a springer trip or a summer steelhead or some, you know, cause I think we got what eight days, six days. I mean, it was, it was pretty, pretty, there was a lot of discussion with that because like I said, PSN, FC, um, North of Falcon, all that process is done. We've got seasons and they gave us a summer snook season Columbia for only from June 16th to June 22nd. And there was a lot of, and there was some discussion back and forth about maybe like pushing the start date later, uh, just because if they, if they really get rid of those first, like, you know, five to 10 days of the season, like we, according to their checks, you know, take it for the grain of salt. Uh, we catch a lot of fish on the 16th and a little less on the 17th, a little less and so on and so forth. So like, if you get rid of some of those really catch heavy first days, right. Then the season, you know, if you start at late can kind of trickle out all, I mean, there's so much every day in the river in July. Right. Um, but I think the, they've, they kind of flopped on that. I thought they were going to go for the later, longer season. Instead, they went with the shorter season, but it should be really productive because that's the other thing. So most of the time when we're summer snook fishing, probably half the fish I catch every day are still, you know, they're still black. Yes, they're still springers. And you can tell because of summer fish, they're like 16 to 18, you know, like five spots on their back and then you'll get this black face 12 founder with a million dark spots in a purple back. And you just, you know, for a fact, half those guys in the fish box, it's belly turns to coal, which is a good thing, which is good. They cut better, but, but for sure, a lot of those fish are still springers for sure. 100%. So you're going to fish there without the runoff this year. I think it's going to be a three 60 game or an anchor game. You know, I think so. The spot I fish it, you know, I think it's always, it's always an anchor game because it's such a kind of a pinch point in the current always rips depend, you know, depending on, you know, water levels, but it always, it always seems to rip through there. So I'll primarily anchor fish talking about like that current channelize fish. You're not going to have any problems. Even if the low Columbia, I just tell people it's, you know, the spot I fish is a fish highway. There you go. It's a fish highway. Let that current push every single one that's going to swim up a 400 yard wide or 500 yard wide river behind your boat. They don't want to be in 40 feet of water and they're not going to be on the bank. So they're going to be on the spot. I fish Eric Swanson spot. What about the fall seasons? Have you checked that stuff out? Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it's what the first 24 days is hatchery only. This is buoy 10 starting August one. Yes. So that's, it makes it a challenge to limit out, you know, cause it seems like at least three quarters of those fish I catch down there are all pretty much wilds. Yeah. Well, the last couple of years, the mark rate has been a good, and they do think that it's going to even improve even more this year. I sure hope so. Cause I really liked those. I think they had 60, I think they had a 60 plus percent mark rate last year in that fishery as far as mark versus released. Right. And then this year, that's huge component of like these Bonneville pool hatchery fish. They're going to come back with truth be told our toolies, uh, but they're not the bad toolies. Like we can kill as many of those things and they're not going to hurt us as the wild ones. Talking about mark rates. The mark rate in my boat is way lower than 60%. I mean, it's like, even for springers, like if I have a good day where I bang out like six or seven springers, two or three of them are always wild. It's, you know, it just, it's always one of those things. Roll the dice every single time. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But yeah, August 1st through 24th this year, hatchery only. And I mean, it's kind of a weird situation too, because like just being on, you know, listening to the meetings and getting the handouts and whatnot, like they last year we had August 1st through 10th hatchery only. And the idea was that if you just gave up those, if they told the sportsman, just give up those first 10 days and then we'll, we'll get you to labor day. If you guys do hatchery only over the first 10 days, we'll get you to labor day. Cause that's like one of their, that's one of their management goals is to get the buoy 10 fishery fortunate through labor day. And unfortunately they missed guest on the 10th. We are, we're, we're better fishermen or actually what I really think happened is more toolies showed up. They survive better. Ultimately they did end up statistically almost dead heat to the forecast, but there was an increase in what actually came back for the LRHs or the toolies that we can't kill or right. Well, we're wild. Excuse me. So this year they really, there's, there was actually forecast to be less of them. Right. Which is why instead of just bumping it to the 15th or the, you know, a little later on, it's like, well, shoot, they had to really look at it and bump it to the 24th. Well, last year in those first 10 days, we only use like a few percentages, like, like two to 4% of like our impact in 10 days of fishing at buoy 10. And we had good fishing, right? We caught a lot of fish and we killed a bunch of fish and some days you're right. Took a lot of time, but we had, you know, good fishing, but will there be a lot of coho though too? Yeah. And so this year I think they, you know, the, you know, the, the way the process works was like, well, we didn't really burn any impacts in those first 10 days. So let's extend it out further and keep in mind, like there's less of those wilds. That means we can fish on them. We can basically catch and kill them less. And when you have a hatchery only season, you're not killing wild, right? Like the take is zero. There is release mortality associated with that, which is why there was a small percentage, but for the most part, it's low. It's low, but by extending it out the 24 days, they assume that after we go kill them all on the 25th, we'll get us to labor day. Now, like, like what you said, we're on the coho. There is a good contingent of coho, 1.2 million. They actually have confidence in that number. I guess some years they make forecasts that they don't really have confidence in, but they have a lot of weird. Yeah. The last two were the last, the last, what, three years, 1.8 million coho, 400,000 show up, but the real significant part of the coho forecast and not lost on people, but like looking at the B run component is almost double what it was last year. And keep in mind, like, you know, there's a lot of coho available, a lot of hatchery coho available on a lot of trips in August, early in August. Like they show up, like they move through, but the fishery, especially after the Chinook close and for us, for like twitching and doing all our fun stuff on the trips later in the season is the B run. And that's, so even though we see that 1.2 million, like even last year we had over a million of coho, what would you rate coho fishing last year, Marno? Okay. Yeah. Average. I mean, not like blow your socks off, but you caught, I mean, like average, like it wasn't like we've seen, but I think this year, even with the forecast is relatively the same. I mean, he went with a 1.6 million, 1.2, whatever, but it's a lot of fish, but with that B run being double and if we get it, like I think things can be really good. And because of that, after the Chinook closes at buoy 10, they're giving it a three hatchery coho limit, which I don't know if any of you guys have done the coho rodeo in September for B runners when they're there. It can get pretty, in the words of Drew nasty, get sideways pretty quick down there. I mean, it's, you can fill your freezer pretty fast with three fish a day and quality fish because those fish that are arriving later from the ocean are big. Yeah. Chinook size coho for sure. Up river in our backyard, up in the, up in the middle river, it's going to be a little different season. A little, I feel like we took the beating. We did. So that's, yeah, that's going to be pretty tough. Looks like we're going to have to head above Bonneville once again. That's right. So September 7th from the warrior rock line down closes for Chinook. And then we get like one more week, actually it's like six days. It closes up then from the 7th to the 13th from the warrior rock line at Bonneville, same thing. They're just trying to avoid truly catch. And then it's, and then the middle river closes a lot for the last two weeks of September, which is really kind of a bummer because that's when we see a lot of bright fishing, but for them to extend out, you know, some of the management goals for Chinook at buoy 10 to Labor Day, I feel like we should have some management goals in the middle river that we'd like to obtain. It's nice to fish in the backyard. Yeah. I mean, and honestly, I catch more Chinook in the river than down there because the river is not as wide, the tides aren't as big, the fish seem to stack, there's a million reasons why, but people still think buoy 10 is the best for Chinook, I'll let them think that. But the reality is the middle river kills a lot of Chinook. I like to fish where the river is three quarters of a mile wide and not four miles wide because I know exactly where the fish are going to be at. Exactly. But a little easier. Good news, which they didn't have in the first North of Falcon meeting is they did, they are going to plan on reopening the Columbia after October 1. Which is fine because there's still lots of Chinook around and there's lots of coho. Bee run coho. So like, yeah, that actually wasn't in their docket and I spoke up at North of Falcon and said, Hey, this can't like, no, no, no, no, no. There's no, there's very, I can't say no. There's very little tule burn later on in the season. And it's 30 days of good productive hatchery coho or any Chinook fishing. Especially if you don't get a bunch of rain that first week or two of October, those fish stack at the mouth of the tribs and you can have some pretty epic paydays in there catching fish when nobody else is out there because everybody thinks it's over with. Well, a lot of guys go hunting. A lot of guys go in the tribs. No, I mean, you know, Marlon, I know Marlon will be chasing horns and hooves and I don't even think we got them out there last year. Deer season and stuff comes around. I'm just, yeah, he has a free day. He's gone. I love to hunt too, but we appreciate that because we need more room. I just, there's a lot of fish there, but those last two weeks of September, you said you're going above Bonneville and that's going to be open year. That's going to be open from August one till the end of the year. Yeah, exactly. So I'll head up there once, once the middle river closes, I'll just head up there to one of the mouth of the other tribs and you know, unfortunately you stay in a hotel and you're eating out every night. So you're, you know, you're burning a lot of extra money up there that you shouldn't need to, cause we should be back home. But anyways, I'll be up there and the fish is just as good. Honestly, if not better, if not, I mean, it's cause those fish are even more stacked and they're even more like well-defined as far as where they're at. And you know, a couple, couple hours in the morning, usually don't throw your snook and it's pretty good. That's where I'll be. Overall, I think this year is going to be a very productive year and I was hoping you guys could, we could get Eric a little bit insight, um, or talking about kind of through these seasons and the big plans and whatnot, you're not going to, nope, nevermind. I'm not even asking that. Uh, but those also, one other thing I breezed over is June 25th is the marine area one ocean opener, right? And some of the guys that head up to Westport and stuff like that, they got a very lucrative season. Marine area. One season for coho take is 84,000. Yeah. I'm going to be out there a lot July at $8 a gallon gas. That's going to hurt a little bit, but big time. Good, good news. We'll have to troll long, hopefully. Yeah. I say that now I just cursed the whole fishery. I'm sorry. If the marine area one fishery sucks this year, it's my bad. Hopefully at least the weather's nice out there and we're not pounding ourselves and. Snow squalls, snow squalls in July. We'll get a hurricane. Oh man. Yeah. And lots, lots of good fishing to look forward to this year. That's why I keep telling people is, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, what seasons we get, as long as we have seasons and we have opportunity because without opportunities, we're sitting on the couch. That's true. Days on the water, Eric, we'll find them. That's for sure. At least I'll find a couple of wilds. I'm sure. Make it happen. They are, but you know, after grinding, you know, daylight till, you know, two, three o'clock in the afternoon, every day for springers, it's nice to kind of transition over to fall and have those nice, you know, done at 11 flayed fish, having a nap by noon, you know, those, those, you know, those days I really like, but, you know, we'll see how it goes with this hatchery only down at that. That's going to be a little weird, but I think overall, if they don't suffer a closure, an early closure down there, it sends the ripple effects right up the river. And then we see closures in the middle river and it just kind of throws the whole management into a whirlwind. So I think if I would rather have them be a little conservative on the front end and not have to shake things up so bad on how many days did, what was it in the middle river last year? I think it was real similar to this. Well, it closed on September 6th or 7th. Remember it shut it down for like that week or 10 days kind of middle because they basically said that the manager said they needed to stop and take a breath. We were whacking way too many toolies in the middle of the river and all those tags are showing up and it was blowing up the numbers. We argued that there was a lot of fish and ultimately there was a little bit over forecast, but like we were just really good at catching them last year. Really unlucky, which is why we, and we'll get, we'll talk about it when we get closer, really why the importance of not killing wild toolies because you could be inadvertently bringing back that coated wire tag that represents a lot more fish to a fish checker. And it's not that you can't not give your fish to the fish checker, but maybe it's like, maybe don't kill the fish that are a little less quality and try to find those other ones because it's important to the fishery, but we'll talk about that at a later podcast. All right, cool. Well, on another note, guys, we are ready. I'm so tired, dude, from this drive. I'm just want to like fall asleep. You didn't even drive. You slept the whole fricking way. I slept for like an hour. Maybe you, I was in traffic a lot longer than an hour. Well, I guess maybe it only felt like an hour. Anyway, guys, if you guys didn't see, we also finally came out with our spring merch drop. So make sure you guys head over to the website. Some of this stuff already sold out, but we went big on a lot of it as well. So head over to the website, spring merch drop. Thank you guys so much for listening. Catch you guys on another one. Later.