Columbia River Springers – No Good Deed…

With the weather warming up a bit and tons of great fishing reports from some reliable sources on Thursday, I felt really good about hitting the water Friday.

Launched the boat in Ridgefield and came across a fella tied up to the dock that appeared to have a dead battery situation.  I tied up along side him and proceeded to hook up the jumper cables.  “Give it a go.”  Nothing.  Not even a click of the starter.  This guy tells me he is borrowing the boat and not 100% sure how the battery system is connected.  I take a look and we try 1, 2 and both on the battery selector and still nothing.  Luckily, I keep a pretty good tool set onboard with a volt meter.  I check the batteries and both are showing a complete charge.  I check connectors and all looks good.  The guy tells me thank you for trying and he knows I want to get out fishing, so off I go.

We are thinking at this time, with the good deed attempt, the fish gods might shine on us this day.   🙂

Come to find out, the boat belongs to a friend of mine I just met last week.  He was away on vacation and let his friend borrow the boat.  They did get the problem figured out.  The dead man switch on the throttle was pulled.  DOH!!!

We get out to the main stem and see nothing but boats as far as we can see.  This is Buoy 10 all over again.  Everyone must have gotten the same fishing report from the day before.  Long story short, we make pass after pass and do not even get a bite.  We watched at least 8 fish getting caught in front of us, behind us and all around us.  Considering all the boat traffic, the catch numbers were not all that great.  I guess the fish gods were not happy with us just trying to get that fisherman in need back on the water.  I bet if we found the dead man switch problem, my story would have ended on a much happier note.  🙂

Tomorrow is another day.  Fish on.