Gooldy

Because it is free flowing, that is what I'm saying is what makes the Willy so tough to fish. With a boat and the willingness to go poke around a bit, you can go find some very fishy backwaters and slower parts though I have had good luck with.

The Columbia (and Snake, for that matter) isn't really even a "river" at that point though, at least in fishing tactics to me. It is so large that it is more like fishing a reservoir than a river in most ways. The willamette is just so fast moving in the main stem that I have never had any success for bass on it. You can go catch more NPM than you can shake a stick at though! If you know the super effective tricks for the Willy please do share, I would love the help haha

Perfection is a 20' Thunderjet ? The mainstem of the Willamette has never produced for me. It is just too much water too fish effectively (for bass). Fishing the sloughs, ponds, and confluences of it though can be very productive. Check out the ponds on riverside...

Well I went out this past weekend and checked out a couple of the local spots. Cheadle Lake is very clear right now, and the weeds aren't yet filling the lake. I thought I was going to crush them, but got totally skunked. Water was still pretty cold, as was the Adair Pond. I didn't bother going back out to Freeway Lakes on Sunday, since when I drove by on Saturday the water was insanely high and chocolate milk colored. I just keep thinking one more week of warm weather is what we need.

As a skinnier dude, I find appendix to be the most comfortable, most concealed and fastest in terms of presentation. But you definitely need to consider what fishballer said. The urban carry though, seems not only like a total gimmick, but it eliminates any chance of a seated draw. I would try out a few different styles of real holsters and see what works for you both.

The triggers in all of the Sig DA guns (with the exception of the X5) have the exact same clicky pen/springy feel to them, are extremely long take up and reset, and are much more difficult/expensive to make lighter and smoother than other DA/SA guns in my experience. I would agree with the poster above, find somebody with a bunch of different guns and a good knowledge base to let you test as many as possible to see what feels good, and discuss your options. A good target gun can be a good self defense gun and vice versa, but you need to figure out what you need and want out of it before you choose.

This goes for everyone: don't buy a 226/9. The triggers are atrocious. If you want DA/SA get yourself a CZ variant (P09, SP01, Shadow, CZ75/85, etc). If you want striker fired, the G34 is a great choice if you can stand glock triggers. The XDm 5.25 is nice as well, and the trigger is significantly better. But really, get yourself a 1911/2011 and go about your life and be happy. Life is too short to shoot crappy guns.

This will be my first spring of bass fishing, I have always been a trout/salmon/fly fisherman. I just got into bassing early last summer (June-ish). At that time of year however I had lots of luck just with wacky and texas rig senkos and spinnerbaits.

Both of those have good shore access, neither of them have smallmouth. If you want smallmouth then the Willy or Long Tom are the places to go. I haven't even bothered with Willamette this year yet, the water is incredibly high right now. I haven't driven down to the Long Tom yet this year. I haven't been to Cheadle yet this year, so I can't speak to how the fishing is there right now, but when I was out at Freeway Lakes on Sunday there were probably 6-8 other people, and no one was catching anything. I threw jigs, spinnerbaits, square bills, lipless, a jerk bait, texas rig brush hog... Not even a bump. Talking to the other dudes, they did the same thing. YMMV.

Wut. That is a whole lot of catfish.

I want to get myself an RPR or a Howa HCR, just to learn how to play the precision game. I spend too much money on my race guns to afford/justify a nicer rifle. 2011s though, they are my jam.

I live in Corvallis, I have yet to catch a fish this year. It has been a very long, cold, and rainy winter. A couple good places that you might check out would be Freeway Lakes and Cheadle Lake. I have only made it out a few times so far this year but the water on Sunday was 50.6 degrees.

Thanks, it's pretty fun! It does pretty much anything from hanging out crabbing in the bay, skiing on the lake, trolling, or just running the river in only a few inches of water. It would probably get used for bass fishing/still water only, and maybe occasionally for holding position in the river when salmon/steelhead fishing on smaller water. But we have a 9.9 kicker on it if we are in real water. As far as draft at rest, I don't know. It's a sled bottom, so it seems like it would probably take quite a bit of effort to push it through the water at an idle/trolling motor speed. On plane though it will run in like less than a foot! It's definitely small compared to a bass boat, that's for sure. It would need to be a whole lot cleaner than it is right now.

That is a bit disheartening, since that is significantly lighter than ours is. Based on the Thunderjet website, the most similar boat is the Canyon 20', and they list it at 2400 dry with a 350 in it. Ours has a 240, so that would be a couple hundred pounds of weight savings, but that is still a lot more weight. I really need to just take it down to the scales and see what it weighs for sure. Just kind of PITA since I would have to weigh it and then go unload it and weigh the trailer, then reload it. Oh well. http://www.thunderjet.com/boat/canyon-jet/

https://eugene.craigslist.org/bpo/6024443417.html what do you think of this one? Seems like it might be more what I'm looking for, and I think 80# would still probably be able to push our boat?