I joined up with Allan and his canine co-pilot, "Sarge" on Monday, June 24th down at Lyons Ferry for an afternoon/evening of Walleye Fishing on the Snake.

I arrived at 3PM and the wind was way down from what it had been earlier. I had been steadily watching the weather, as I wanted to join up with him on Sunday, but the winds were in the high-teens, low 20's.... And as you know, the Snake River is a wind tunnel for Southerly winds and it gets mean in a hurry, when strong current coming out of Little Goose Dam and Southerly Winds collide.

I was going to come down Sunday, but Allan described it as a scene straight out of the opening credits for Gilligan's Island where the SS Minnow was lost or something akin to what sunk the Edmond Fitzgerald when the Gales of November come early..... Even so, Allan still managed to put on his super hero T-Shirt and yank a 10 pounder out of all that chaos.

Well, by early afternoon on Monday, the winds had slowed to single digits and it was a beautiful, sunny day...... Allan had reported that up until that point, fishing was slow, but there were high hopes and expectations for the afternoon and evening. Sarge was ambiguously indifferent.........but became just as enthusiastic as we were, when I pulled out my bag of potato chips.

I had fished the Snake two days earlier and we were successful in the 15-20 feet range, not the traditional 25-30 foot for that spot! Also, remembering a fishing detail that Greg shared with me about sunny days and the color purple. (the color, not the movie) I threw on a purple bodied Bandit with a yellow belly and boom, had our first eater fish in the livewell within 5 minutes.... My second fish came about 10 minutes after that and was a beautiful 26 inch fatty! The batteries were shot in Allan's scale so we didn't get a weight, but rough estimates are that the fish weighed somewhere between 6.5 and 7lbs.

I'm not sure if the majority of the Walleye are in 15-20 foot, but that water column is holding active fish right now. The water clarity on the Snake is really dark and that combined with the emerging weed beds are giving the walleye enough shade to be active midday at those depths and evening makes it even better.

Not ever settling for something good, I changed up off of purple to see if Chartreuse would pay any mid-day bills, and it didn't. After the second pass, we went up to fish the mouth of the Tucannon. Allan pulled another nice eater out of 20 foot. We fished the mouth for two passes and managed to pull another eater out of there and went back to the shelf across from the Tucannon.

We did another pass, and I pulled another eater and slammed a nice 5 pound Channel Cat right next to the shore in roughly 10 foot of water. He smacked that crank bait like I owed him money! That was a fun fight and I thought I might have another eye' worthy of release. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a catfish and....being that Man doth not live on Walleye alone,... into the live well it went.... (His was the last laugh though, because he stunk up my kitchen something fierce! It smelled like someone took a dump on my countertop, because he did...... I think he might've been dining on Taco Bell, before my crankbait came along.

We fished a few more spots and by this time, the sun was going down and in the evening, it has been my experience that hot colors like chartreuse and orange, pays the rent on the Snake, so I switched up to a custom painted Bandit that I purchased from Wicked Custom Jigs that I thought would be a great color for the Snake. (see below) At this point we had 5 great eater walleye and a big catfish, so we decided to stop fishin' for the freezer and start to fish for the camera. And the Snake did not disappoint!

Starting downstream from the mouth of the Tucannon, we trolled upstream and just before we were about to break off and do another pass, Allan did a Crazy-Ivan with the boat and WHAM!! My bandit got nailed by this big Sow, like I had taken her children... (which is a strong possibility)....... When I set the hook, I knew that I had a big Ol' Snake River Donkey on the line. That heavy, slow thump on the rod, always brings exciting news of a biggun' and she did not act out of character! In the boat, she measured 29" and went 9.45 lbs. My second best on the Snake! Pictures and then a big wet sloppy kiss on her noggin' and she was set free with a stern warning and a grateful smile. A couple of high-fives and fist-bumps and we were back at it, to see if her fat sister, was also in the neighborhood.

The Snake River is an awesome fishery and we need to protect it! Please release all fish at or over 24". There has been considerably more pressure on this body of water over the last couple of years and I think that it is only going to increase. We need do what we can to protect it.

The day's tally was: A 17", two 18's, a 19" and a 20" along with a stinky-ass Catfish, that are headed for the freezer. We released the 26" and the 29" fish.....

"And...........This is why we troll Cranks on the Snake"

Travis with a 29 inch walleye (released). Weight 9.45 lbs.

Travis and Allan: Snake River - 6/25