Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I moved from Reston VA to Vancouver WA in 2010. Sometimes I still look at this site and write a post about fishing "out here".

Millions of american shad migrate up the Columbia River for about six weeks at this time of year. There are no limits on shad fishing here and shad make good bait for sturgeon fishing. Also, many folks load up on them to use for crabbing bait at the coast.

A fishing guide that I go out with fairly frequently has bragged about nonstop action when he goes out to load up on bait to use when he takes customers fishing for sturgeon. I wanted to see this.

So, yesterday I joined him on a trip to help him load up with bait The objective was to fill three coolers with shad. The two of us caught 160 shad in about 6 hours of fishing. That averages out to landing a fish about every two minutes. It was unbelievable action.





Bait was a little jig with a green plastic curly tail grub fished about 18 inches off the bottom in water 13 ft deep.



We fished in the Columbia River Gorge about two miles below Bonneville Dam. Here's a bit of scenery:

View upriver from where we fished.



View of the Washington side of river downriver from where we fished.



View of the Oregon side of river downriver from where we fished.



A view into the fish ladder at Bonneville Dam visitors center.



From past posts I've made about sturgeon fishing, here are some examples of using shad as bait for big sturgeon. When using big baits like that we have caught fish six to ten feet long that weigh 150 to 400 lbs. However, bigger ones are possible.









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Last edited by Bob B (Jun-01-13 12:49AM)