Fishing With Grandpa Isaacson

My dad bought an Alumaweld drift boat this past fall. We haven't floated any rivers yet, but we have used it lots at Morgan Lake. Grandpa has tried taking all the kids fishing this spring; a special time with just him and typically me. Morgan Lake is a family favorite. There are lots of fish to catch, they taste great, and success is typically high. The fish aren't big, by any means, but the kids love them. And most importantly, Grandpa Isaacson loves to take his grandkids out for fun! Grandpa Marchant isn't any different. He spends as much time as possible building memories with family, something Kim and I appreciate muchly! How lucky our kids are for having wonderful grandparents that love them and want to spend time with them!

A few weeks ago, Grandpa Isaacson took Cole up to Morgan Lake with uncle Seth and Tyler. They took the green row boat, as well as the Alumaweld. Cole fished with Grandpa and Seth and Tyler took the other boat. Fishing was slow that day, but Grandpa figured out that drifting with the wind, letting the lures drag behind was the ticket to catching fish.

Cole loves to fish, maybe even more than Tyler. Cole is typically very Norwegian, not showing much emotion, but smiling quietly, and contently to himself. But this day he hooked and landed a 15 inch rainbow. The biggest of the trip, and he let the world know about it! He kept explaining to Grandpa just exactly how he managed to catch this fish. He had been missing fish all day and Grandpa was trying to explain he needed to let the fish hit a 2nd time. Cole listened and nailed the biggest fish, and he loved it. Tyler was telling me how Cole wouldn't stop talking about his big fish, explaining exactly how he caught it, and showing real emotion. Ty was pretty proud of his little brother.

These videos are from our recent trip with Jared and Lyndie.

This is Lyndie landing a fish on a fishing rod of mine that I bought 20 years ago with my late, great friend, Mike Cleveland. You can tell she is an old hand at this the way she swings the fish over to be landed! I love girls that love to fish!

Jared complained he wasn't having any fun because he only had caught 4 fish, so we threatened to throw him overboard if he didn't quit whining. To his credit we didn't have to listen to the boobing anymore. The next time Grandpa took him fishing, Jared wasn't catching a thing, and he turned to Grandpa and said, "I'm having a blast grandpa". I guess the lesson stuck! =)

Lyndie loves pink. And this little ice fishing rod is the only pink rod we own, so she decided this was her dream rod. It is almost impossible to cast a rod of this size. I finally got it to cast around 15 feet, so she had to let line run off the spool as grandpa rowed the boat. But she did land 2 or 3 fish on the little thing. It was fun to watch her fight these fish on such a small rod. She did fine though and really enjoyed the pink fishing experience. We found a quantum rod and reel set in Cabelas that is all pink with a mail in offer for an all pink Quantum visor. I'm thinking we will have to get that for her so she has a better pink tool for slaying Morgan Lake rainbows!

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Newport Marina and Charters

I have fished the Pacific Ocean a few times, twice with my Grandpa Burris and a few more with my dad. We always fished the jetties and tide pools and caught lots of kelp greenling, or sea trout, and the surf perch, or sea perch as we called them. Sometimes a flounder or rock bass was landed, but I mostly remember the sea trout and perch.

Once my grandpa took me on a 75 foot cliff. We fished off of it and hooked quite a few. But the long haul back up proved difficult for landing a thrashing fish. I'd have loved to have been in a boat at the bottom watching the fish POP when they hit the surf. Catch and release from that height doesn't work out so well. We did land a few though. I also remember scaling a nasty hillside/almost cliff, to get to some tide pools at low tide. The fishing was fantastic, until the seals showed up. The rocks we fished off of were covered in mussels. There was a pool of water in a depression in the rock platform we kept our fish fresh in. There were star fish and sea anemones in there too.

I have always wanted to return and fish the coast again, and honestly I've always wanted to charter a fishing boat and go out on the ocean. So last week we scheduled a 6 hours trip through Newport Marina and Charters. We were on the Ms. Raven, a 46 foot charter boat. It was AWESOME. We were targeting rock fish and cod. The cod fishing is best in the early spring as they are spawning and very agressive.

We boarded the boat around 7:30 AM and headed out of Yaquina Bay into the Pacific on a rising tide. We dropped a dozen crab pots and then headed south to fish. I caught the first of many black rock bass. It was a blast fishing with my dad, brother-in-law Matt Yoshioka, his daughter Mori, and my 3 oldest kids, Tyler, Corey, and Abbie. Everyone caught fish, but my dad was the lucky one of the day.

I wish I had taken more video and just sat my rod in the rod holders. The "motion of the ocean" added enough movement to the jigs that hook ups were consistent for those who fished that way. But I like to cast, reel, and jig, so I didn't video much of what I should have. Like a couple of hundred black and blue finned rock bass, finning, or surfacing on dungenous crab larvae. The larvae were there by the 10's of thousands, and the fish were surfacing in 70 feet of water, sucking in the larvae, growing fat on pure protein. I would have killed for a fly rod at that moment. The sea birds tipped us off, grouping on the surface to feast. When we got closer we could see hundreds of fins breaking the surface as the rock fish fed.

I was having so much fun watching Matt puke--hee hee hee--that I didn't film him "chumming", or the fining rock fish, or the birds, or all the hook ups. Typically the kids brought in two fish at a time. We easily filled our 7 fish limits. We hooked a lot of cod as well, both green and brown, but only had one keeper. Cod have to be over 22 inches to keep, and my dad got the only keeper, a green cod of around 30 inches. Tyler, Corey, and I all caught fishing in the 21 to 21 and 15/16th range, but no keepers.

I think Tyler caught the greatest variety of fish. One of his doubles was a canary rock fish--which must be released--and a copper fin rock fish. Both are a bright orange, but the canary has yellow striping on its head and body. We caught yellow fin rock fish, kelp greenling and Mori got a cabezon that was a legal 16 inches. Most everything we caught, though, was a black or blue finned rock fish.

This is video of Tyler's Copper Finned Rockfish. I couldn't get the video out fast enough to show him fighting it. Honestly, we were hooked up on fish so often I wouldn't have fished at all had I been trying to video everything. Because you never knew what you had until it was almost in the boat, it was hard to get something "unique". So I just fished until something "unique" surfaced, and then got out the camera.

Tyler was reeling in one of his many doubles when Grandpa Isaacson's rod dipped. He set the hook on what he thought was the bottom. That is until the bottom exploded, moving at warp speeds, wrapping EVERYONE'S lines around his. When the Chinook Salmon broke the water, Captain Mike yelled, "we have a Chinook on".................................and that is when things got crazy, and my camera came out. Captain Mike and Billy, one of the deck hands, moved in from both side of my dad while he fought tooth and nail the biggest fish of his life! They got all the lines untangled working as a team, passing rods over, under, and around. They cleared everyone out and Captain Mike kept telling him.........nice n easy, nice n easy.....................but why ruin the experience, better if you just watch if for yourself. It's much more exciting!

This is the 3rd salmon caught this year on their charters for BOTTOM FISH. This is the only one caught during an open season, by a person with a tag, so it was triple cool, cause dad caught a salmon bottom fishing, in season, and he had a tag. By the way, it measured out to be 38 inches long and weighed in at 34 pounds! Can you say HOOKED! All grandpa wants to do now is fish the ocean for salmon! Can you blame him?

This video is of the trip out, setting crab pots (Billy, the deck hand, has the black hoodie on, Captain Mike has the red hat). I didn't video us bringing them up because I was busy having fun helping. Sorry.

The crabbing was okay. Lots of females and only about half the males were keepers, but we still brought home 9 big dungenous crab. The kids loved them. In total we brought home 49 rock fish, one cod and one salmon besides the crab. And if that wasn't enough, we got to watch the human filleting machine at the docks. It's $1 per rock fish, $1.50 per cod, and two-fiddey (as he said) for the salmon. I have always prided myself in my filleting abilities, but I am humbled by this guys sharp knife and quick hands! It was a wonderful time with family and an experience I won't forget. One that I hope to repeat again, and again, and again, and again.................and again!

Below are the videos of the human filleting machine. I've included both the salmon and some rock fish so you can see how fast he fillets and also learn from his technique!

Filleting Salmon

Filleting Rockfish

Photo Time at the Cleaning Station

How to Kiss a Fish

I always tease my kids about "no tongue" when kissing a fish, so while Corey and I fished I gave him an example of how NOT to kiss a fish for the camera! You with weak constitutions should by pass this video! The faint of heart and stomach should not proceed further. If you can watch the "kissing scene" in the movie, "Gentleman Bronco" you can handle this! This fish is one of the 4 keepers we caught, and one of the 7 I hooked with Corey on his "day of paradise". I love using quotes, it just makes what you say seem............................................. I don't know................ kind of fun, I guess.

Sethy The Mighty Fisher Lands Steelhead

Seth went with us. He has struggled to catch many steelhead this year. He did get a 31 inch native hen on the upper Grande Ronde that was a blast to catch, but overall he has gone pretty much fishless. But not today. Today he hooked 4 and missed a 5th. He landed 3 of them and found out he likes drift fishing as much as spinners. You can watch his two videos below.

Steelhead Can Jump

This video is of a nice, 28.75 inch wild buck I caught. It jumped 3 or 4 times. Corey actually captured one cartwheel on film for YOUR viewing pleasure. In this cold water they aren't as acrobatic as the summer run fish, but when they decide to leave the water, they do it in STYLE!

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Corey's Day In Paradise

Story and videos to come later when I have some sleep. I'll tell you though, he landed 16 steelhead from 21-32 inches! 10 of them were hooked by myself and other men in our little party, 6 of them he did from hook set to tailing! That is more steelhead in one day than he has ever landed/hooked in his life! He hooked 6 others and being the unselfish sportsman he is he practiced some long line releases for those fish that were unworthy to be counted in the total! He was sore the next day from fighting fish! He also ate the ENTIRE bag of snack size Snickers by himself! Did I mention he slept both ways? Yeah, he's the man! Envy him NOW! I do.

Jared Got Caught Playing With The Flip

I downloaded a bunch of videos the other day and found one on there I didn't recognize. Jared found the flip video camera and was playing with it and this is what we found. Thankfully it didn't break the camera! If you get motion sick you may not want to watch this too much!

Corey Lands a 30.5 inch Buck

Corey's wrestling season stretched into March. So he hasn't been fishing with just me yet. The Thursday before spring break was a day for me to see my wife and help get her ready to leave for southern Utah the next day. Corey and I were supposed to fish, but we canceled because of weather and because Kim needing my help. But, we got reports that the fishing was good, so, we planned a morning fish on Friday, before they left.

The water was high and fishing was decent. It had rained a bunch the day before. I hooked 5 on eggs, drifting them deep in the fast runs, but we only landed two of them in the heavy current. The boys didn't fair too well. I hooked a keeper hen almost immediately, but Corey was down river, fishing a good spot that happened to be open when we got there. I offered it to Tyler, but he declined, tailing it for me. Tyler finally hooked a fish up river on his fly rod, just before we left, but lost it.

Corey didn't pick up any fish down below , so he came up to fish with us. Just after he got there I hooked this fish. It was strong and the current made it almost impossible to move. Corey really had his work cut out for him. He couldn't reel, he had to just hold on. Finally he moved the fish out of the hard current into a seam and was able to crank it up to me. I tailed it, lifted it out of the water and it tried escaping. I had to hug it to my body to not lose it. We got it to bank and tagged it quick. Corey was REALLY excited.

I'm not sure if it was harder to keep Jesse or Lyndie out of the pictures. You can see Lyndie is excited about the fish. The first photo just shows her arm, but the second one she is the center of the photograph. She finally just walked in for a shot. We don't mind though. A girl this cute deserves to be on film!