This was a wild and fun weekend but where to begin. I took Friday off from work so that I could have a four day weekend. I get off work at 3:30am, so I went home, packed the car, drove to pick up my buddy Dalton and the new boat, and off we went to Lyon's Ferry. It was a nice change of pace to be driving in the daylight, opposite from all of our trips the year before leaving in the late evening. We got to the campground around lunch time, launched the boat set up camp, and headed out to the elevator to catch some bait. This can be just as fun as cat fishing because although you are catching garbage fish you are catching a lot of fish. Using a 1/4-1/2oz slip wait and the smallest piece of worm we would chuck our lines out in the river and wait for some action. We were getting bites but no few fish. I cannibalized a fly for a smaller hook and I instantly started hooking up way more often. We caught bass, peamouth, pikeminnow, and sucker fish all that make great bait. Not wanting to cut the bait up we brought it back to camp and left the dirty work for Paul while we got the boats ready to go cat fishing. Heading out around 5 we headed up to our spot near the mouth of the Tucannon River. Using a pinky to thumb size piece of bait we hucked our lines out and proceeded to wait for some cat fish. We also brought the grill along to cook some steaks and pass the time. Dalton caught a nice cat that we broke the stringer off of an lost and the other boat caught a two cats as well.
Day 2:
Having not the capability the past year to power up the river to far and now having a ski boat converted into a fishing boat we ventured up the river to a creek we wanted to scout for potential cat fishing and other sorts. Turned out to be a fun spot to catch some bass and bait fish but we were confident on the cat fishing. We went back to camp and ventured to the elevator for some bait fish again, this time with some smaller hooks and again hammered some bait. Knowing others had gone up the Palouse we went and scouted that as well. We weren't keen on taking the ski boat up it but Paul managed to take his little boat over the mud flats. They fished there while we fished for cat under the elevator for a while and again at the mouth. I got two cats this night and the other boys struck out. Although something did snap their line. We got off the water and I went over turkey hunting out of Clarkston.
Day 3:
Exhausted from not sleeping to go turkey hunting I slept through bait fishing and woke up to go out cat fishing that night. Thinking about wanting to catch a big cat and watching maybe a little too much river monster I had put on a full 6" bass the night before with no luck and tonight tried a full 7" peamouth. This time it worked. Stoked out of my mind I started to reel in but thought I had lost it. I hadn't and instead reeled up a small bull cat that wasn't hooked but for not wanting to give up the smaller fish it had just pretty much swallowed. Overall the cat fishing was slow, maybe because it was too early, maybe because the water was too cold, or maybe because that is just fishing.
Summary:
Location: Snake River, near Lyon's Ferry State Park WA
Time: daytime (bait) 5pm-12am (Cat Fish)
Rod: light weight spinner (bait), medium-light spinner and medium baitcaster (Cats)
Tackle: Bait - Worms, Cats - Whatever bait you caught
Fish: 20+
Species: Sucker, Bass, Peamouth, Pikeminnow, Channel Cat, Flathead Cat, Bull Head Cat, Carp
Biggest Fish: 6# Cat
Smallest Fish: 7" peamouth
Rating: 7/10
