Gooldy

Because it is free flowing, that is what I'm saying is what makes the Willy so tough to fish. With a boat and the willingness to go poke around a bit, you can go find some very fishy backwaters and slower parts though I have had good luck with.

The Columbia (and Snake, for that matter) isn't really even a "river" at that point though, at least in fishing tactics to me. It is so large that it is more like fishing a reservoir than a river in most ways. The willamette is just so fast moving in the main stem that I have never had any success for bass on it. You can go catch more NPM than you can shake a stick at though! If you know the super effective tricks for the Willy please do share, I would love the help haha

Perfection is a 20' Thunderjet ? The mainstem of the Willamette has never produced for me. It is just too much water too fish effectively (for bass). Fishing the sloughs, ponds, and confluences of it though can be very productive. Check out the ponds on riverside...

Well I went out this past weekend and checked out a couple of the local spots. Cheadle Lake is very clear right now, and the weeds aren't yet filling the lake. I thought I was going to crush them, but got totally skunked. Water was still pretty cold, as was the Adair Pond. I didn't bother going back out to Freeway Lakes on Sunday, since when I drove by on Saturday the water was insanely high and chocolate milk colored. I just keep thinking one more week of warm weather is what we need.

As a skinnier dude, I find appendix to be the most comfortable, most concealed and fastest in terms of presentation. But you definitely need to consider what fishballer said. The urban carry though, seems not only like a total gimmick, but it eliminates any chance of a seated draw. I would try out a few different styles of real holsters and see what works for you both.

The triggers in all of the Sig DA guns (with the exception of the X5) have the exact same clicky pen/springy feel to them, are extremely long take up and reset, and are much more difficult/expensive to make lighter and smoother than other DA/SA guns in my experience. I would agree with the poster above, find somebody with a bunch of different guns and a good knowledge base to let you test as many as possible to see what feels good, and discuss your options. A good target gun can be a good self defense gun and vice versa, but you need to figure out what you need and want out of it before you choose.

This goes for everyone: don't buy a 226/9. The triggers are atrocious. If you want DA/SA get yourself a CZ variant (P09, SP01, Shadow, CZ75/85, etc). If you want striker fired, the G34 is a great choice if you can stand glock triggers. The XDm 5.25 is nice as well, and the trigger is significantly better. But really, get yourself a 1911/2011 and go about your life and be happy. Life is too short to shoot crappy guns.

This will be my first spring of bass fishing, I have always been a trout/salmon/fly fisherman. I just got into bassing early last summer (June-ish). At that time of year however I had lots of luck just with wacky and texas rig senkos and spinnerbaits.

Both of those have good shore access, neither of them have smallmouth. If you want smallmouth then the Willy or Long Tom are the places to go. I haven't even bothered with Willamette this year yet, the water is incredibly high right now. I haven't driven down to the Long Tom yet this year. I haven't been to Cheadle yet this year, so I can't speak to how the fishing is there right now, but when I was out at Freeway Lakes on Sunday there were probably 6-8 other people, and no one was catching anything. I threw jigs, spinnerbaits, square bills, lipless, a jerk bait, texas rig brush hog... Not even a bump. Talking to the other dudes, they did the same thing. YMMV.

Wut. That is a whole lot of catfish.

I want to get myself an RPR or a Howa HCR, just to learn how to play the precision game. I spend too much money on my race guns to afford/justify a nicer rifle. 2011s though, they are my jam.

I live in Corvallis, I have yet to catch a fish this year. It has been a very long, cold, and rainy winter. A couple good places that you might check out would be Freeway Lakes and Cheadle Lake. I have only made it out a few times so far this year but the water on Sunday was 50.6 degrees.

Thanks, it's pretty fun! It does pretty much anything from hanging out crabbing in the bay, skiing on the lake, trolling, or just running the river in only a few inches of water. It would probably get used for bass fishing/still water only, and maybe occasionally for holding position in the river when salmon/steelhead fishing on smaller water. But we have a 9.9 kicker on it if we are in real water. As far as draft at rest, I don't know. It's a sled bottom, so it seems like it would probably take quite a bit of effort to push it through the water at an idle/trolling motor speed. On plane though it will run in like less than a foot! It's definitely small compared to a bass boat, that's for sure. It would need to be a whole lot cleaner than it is right now.

That is a bit disheartening, since that is significantly lighter than ours is. Based on the Thunderjet website, the most similar boat is the Canyon 20', and they list it at 2400 dry with a 350 in it. Ours has a 240, so that would be a couple hundred pounds of weight savings, but that is still a lot more weight. I really need to just take it down to the scales and see what it weighs for sure. Just kind of PITA since I would have to weigh it and then go unload it and weigh the trailer, then reload it. Oh well. http://www.thunderjet.com/boat/canyon-jet/

https://eugene.craigslist.org/bpo/6024443417.html what do you think of this one? Seems like it might be more what I'm looking for, and I think 80# would still probably be able to push our boat?

I am very right handed (my left is about as coordinated as a flipper), and I use fly, spinning, and casting gear all the same. Cast right, reel left. To me swapping hands seems completely silly. Casting any of the above with my left hand feels about the same as trying to swing a bat or golf club left handed, i.e. completely and totally wrong. Reeling is by far the easier of the two tasks between controlling the bait and turning a handle, so I don't understand the argument of "you want your dominant hand to be controlling the fish," since that is what the rod does in all three cases. Feeling a finesse bait on the bottom, throwing mends with a fly rod gently, setting the hook... these are all things I want my good hand taking care of.

Code is 17SPRING. Good on orders of 150 or more, you still have to cover shipping. I used it in store, so I didn't have to pay that.

I dunno haha, they just mail them to me like quarterly or something. This was the spring "Cabela's Bucks", 20 off of a purchase of 150 or more. Add one small item and bam done. I don't know if it is still available or not, I could look when it expires when I get home from work if you want.

I just picked up my Curado last week for 130 bucks after the 20 dollar off coupon I got from cabela's along with their $150 sale. Seemed like a steal to me.

Hmm, maybe from Bass Resource, for a start? " Yet another advantage of this space age line is that fluorocarbon has less stretch than typical nylon or copolymer monofilaments. " I know I'm new to bass fishing, and I'm not even saying this isn't true if someone actually did the testing to find out. But there is a lot of conflicting info out there. Tons of what I've read online has all said it's stiffer, which seems legit based on my fly fishing experience. But it's probably just the extra sensitivity that makespecially it seem that way. My mistake.

I am not sure how much stretch you want, but floro would have less stretch than either mono or copoly.

Alright, I'm gonna apologize right up front for the necrothread bump here, but that's how it goes. I was looking at the stocking schedule on the ODFW website, and we are getting into stocking season for all the ponds. Has anyone tried to throw some bigger baits soon after the planters get put in? Since we can see the date ranges for when they are going to be planted, would it be reasonable to try throwing some swim baits at them this time of year? Yes, I realize the weather has been/continues to be atrocious and the water is cold. That is part of my question, is it simply too cold for the bass to chase around a trout right now? I only have one real swim bait at this point, one of the smaller (6" if I remember right?) savage gear "real trout" ones.

Oh I didn't realize that it was cable steer. I was trying to research that one a bit but was struggling to find any really helpful results. Probably since it is a fair bit older. Back to the drawing board! Thank you for your help.

Hmm. That I might have to look into this idea more, cause that would have the smallest permanent effect on the boat as well!

Thanks for all the replies guys! I do love fishing from my kayak occasionally, but the boat is just sooo much easier. I don't have a fishing kayak, just a regular sit in boat. So if I am working high resistance baits (cranks, frogs, etc) then I get pulled towards my bait and I usually end up crashing into the bank while futzing with my paddle in one hand and rod in the other hahaha I was considering doing something like this, but was a bit concerned that it would not be strong enough for the amount of force a big trolling motor like a 100# would put on it. Do you have any idea if that is true, or am I just borrowing trouble? That is a nice looking motor, pretty similar to the one I was looking at locally, but it appears to have a smaller footprint. That would probably help with my issue, but its definitely more expensive than going used... This is the one I was looking at, good deal? https://portland.craigslist.org/clk/bpo/6015640761.html