~ King of the Reach 2020 ~

This year with 299 anglers on the river, 1,175 wild salmon we caught and taken to the hatchery. Last years winning boat brought in 74 fish and this years winner brought in 68 fish. That is a lot of salmon to catch in just 3 days. With a 4 person per boat limit, 68 fish in 3 days is pretty impressive.

Now our boat wasn’t helping out too much with this whole conservation effort. It’s pretty frustrating to be doing the exact thing others were doing and not catching salmon the way they were. We had salmon jumping out of the water around ya but we sure weren’t catching any. We did finally manage to catch 2 hatchery salmon and 2 wild salmon, so we did catch a few. The most important thing is, we had a great time.

We were constantly cracking jokes about how they are gonna give us a 4 year ban due to lack in productivity. Or when we try to sign up next year they will call and tell us that the amount of fuel we used in comparison to the number of fish caught was too far off last year and we have been banned from the tournament. The jokes just kept rolling!! So even though the salmon weren’t being brought into the boat, the amount of laughing that went on made it all worth it.

The temps in the morning were below freezing and there was a slight breeze coming up the river. Cold... yep it sure was. Don’t ask me why this is fun but it just is. Lol. I am just happy that I was able to bring my camp trailer to provide a nice warm place to come to after a long cold day on the river. Hopefully next year we do a little better in the salmon catching department because I know we will always have a great time on the Columbia River.