First Fishing Trip of 2018 with Jim Thurber of Gold Rush

This is the continuation to my previous post.  Thank you again Home with Heroes for making this happen.

We were scheduled to hit the Sandy river, but due to high winds, the excursion was moved to the Clackamas river to get a little more protection from the wind.  It was still pretty cold, but not too windy.  Good call guy’s.

I arrived at the ramp to be greeted by several veterans and their guests.  These were a great bunch of guys with some great stories.  Our special guest was Jim Thurber from Discovery channel series Gold Rush.  Regardless of how hard we pressed him, he would not reveal the new season, although he did have some great stories about the show.

We split between the two boats.  Cody Herman was going to be anchoring and running plugs from his boat while Brandon Glass would be bobber doggin from his.  Trying to decide between lounging around, watching rods, eating, drinking and BS’ing with the guys or running and gunning up and down the river standing and casting all day was a tough choice.  I did not have a preference, but the idea of learning a new technique compelled me to join the team on Brandon’s boat.  There was still eating, drinking and BS’ing, but probably not as much.  It was definitely worth it learning how to bobber dog.  This may be my go to from now on.

We spent a few hours with not even a nibble.  We rolled up on Cody’s boat to find him eating a banana.  Obviously, that superstition does not hold water on his boat.  He landed two steelhead for the day.  As he finished his banana, he tossed the peel at our boat and it landed on my shoulder.  Oh no, I have been cursed.  🙂

As we continued down river, casting through every spot possible, the mood was about to change.  With this bobber doggin method we were using, the way the 5 bobbers were going through the water and being moved around by the currents, if you take your eye off your bobber for a split second, you will lose sight of which one is actually yours.  Well, at least that is how it worked for me.  Someone yelled bobber down!  I was watching what i thought to be my bobber and it was still floating fine.  Then someone woke me up and said “Tony, that is your bobber.  Set the hook!”  Silly me…..  I got the slack out and set the hook.  The fight was on.  Actually, it did not fight that hard.  Just a few tugs here and there and maybe jumped once or twice.  Not much of a fight, but a nice fish nun the less.  It was a keeper hatchery in case you could not tell by the fight description.  That banana peel on the shoulder must have been the trick.  🙂

The first fishing trip of 2018 is now under my belt and the monkey is off my back.  It was a spectacular day on the water.  Let this be my omen for 2018 telling me this is going to be a banner year.