Columbia River Boaters

[II Lucky]

O.K. guys, we get spoiled hearing about our friends up north with their great boating waters. Although they do have perhaps the best boating waters in all of the U.S., The Columbia, Willamette, and Snake offer some great boating and some great destinations. I would like to hear from some of us boating down here in the land of Lewis and Clark. I haven't seen any posts from Navigator 53, Coolchange, or Patriot in quite a while. Since this is the IBNW site it would be great to hear from boaters in the Tri Cities, Lake Courd'E'lene??, Lake Chelan, Detroit Lake, Hells Canyon, Willamette above the locks, and Willamette below the locks, Multnomah channel, Columbia river bar, Columbia above Bonneville, etc. Hope this spurs some activity on the site. This is a great NW Site and I would hope that we could get some of the Lake Chelan and Puget Sound boaters excited to visit our neck of the woods. Happy Boating.

Bryan

[Salmon Troller]

Back when we had a trailer boat, we used to make an annual trip to the Palouse area, down onto the Snake. Great fishing & a wonderful place to cruise. I have also done some boating down on the Columbia at Cathlamet, again, lots of places to go, things to do. Unfortunately without a trailer boat, it is not very practical for us to make the run down from Puget Sound - who knows, maybe after retirement.
Jim

[II Lucky]

Jim, Cathlamet is on my list for this season. We have a week planned in Hells Canyon, a couple of weekends at Detroit Lake, anchored in downtown Portland for the Blues Fest and the rest of the season on the Columbia. Maybe Mike should change the name of the forum to IBPugetsound.com. I was hoping to stir up some inland boaters. I guess I just need to move back to Bellevue buy a bigger boat and cruise the waters you guys talk so much about.

Bryan

[Brown-out]

We are avid Inland NW boaters...
Spend a lot of time on Coeur d'Alene, and Lake Roosevelt, (mostly Roosevelt) and venture down to the Snake in the fall for a little steelhead fishing. It seems the locals around here aren't forum people :) A lot of boaters around here!

[SomeSailor]

Never made Roosevelt, but my neighbor is up there every year and raves about it. Fishing pretty good?

[Brown-out]

Yup, good fishing from what I understand, I've seen some nice walleye and bass pulled out of there. I can never seem to get my line in the water. I spend too much time in my beach chair with my feet in the warm sand. Getting ready to fish starts looking like work when you have a pan of shrimp over the fire and a cold one in hand. :mrgreen:

[SomeSailor]

Shrimp on the Barby sounds better than fishin' anyhow. :)

[bradvo]

Get that boat over to the San Juans and the shrimp is fresh, still swimming infact. Then ya pull the crab trap but before ya head back to the docks ya buy a couple pounds of clams at Wescott farms. By the way, the cold one is still happening during all this.

PS
I learned how to water ski on the Columbia, lived in Portland for awhile during my youth.

I never put my 19 footer into Rosevelt , we were always at Banks lake.
Good bass fishing there also.
Back in those days I was told the walleyes were hiting good below the dam.

I really miss Banks lake, I have great memories of our family when we were all younger . Before we owned a boat we used to go to Sun Lakes quite a bit to camp and fish. Even tried the potholes before for fishing. One I really liked was walking back into Quincy lake and catching german brown trout.
Lake Wenache was also a favorite , although we liked to fish from the river. But man the forest there has way to many mosquitos.
Chelan was a common stop when we trailered, we never stayed in town back then. We went up to that 25 mile campground, not even sure if it is still there now.

[Brown-out]

The San Juans are definitly a goal for us. I'm thinking next summer, tis a long haul over the hill from Spokane. Not to mention fuel costs, our hauler gets somewhere in the 6-8 mpg range. That said, it is the trip I am most looking forward to. I have been boating inland waters all my life, but the whole tides and current stuff will be a different animal. My wife and I are boat lovers through and through, I have a feeling once we get over there we won't want to come back! I'm sure I will have plenty of questions for you guys before we plan that trip!

[bradvo]

Brown Out , I like that Spokane area. I went to Sacajawea Jr High for one year and Ferris High for one year before we moved over to King Co. (Kent ) We lived on the South Hill area in Spokane, I think today I would not recognize the area, i heard Browns mountain is now full of homes. When I lived there it was only a few homes. There was a radio station not far from where i lived, KJR or something like that, it was all bike riding trails in those days, for the kids that could afford a dirt bike anyway.
I still keep in touch with the guys I met from the 2 years I lived there. Infact one of my old Pals just stopped by a couple weeks ago. He now lives in Ketchum Idaho.
We used to frequent Liberty lake for swims and hanging out when we were kids living in Spokane.
Spokane was a great place .

[Patriot]

Well Lucky, you know that I love to make the trip through the Willamette Falls locks. A real adventure. Pay attention to the navigation buoys above the falls and you can cruise 35 miles upstream, to the mouth of the Yamhill River. And if you really know the river, you can go a lot further than that--but I don't take my big boat there.

How was your stay at the Blues Festival? We had to pull out early and go do some real estate business.

[II Lucky]

Ken, It was unfortunate that I did not see you until you were leaving. You have a very nice looking boat. We had a great time. I did have to tow my friends brothers 10,000 boat from Downtown to the airport due to a blown drive. It was a slow trip back to the ramp. It was O.K. because I know that if I had the problem he would have towed me back. I would hope that I am on top of my boats maintanance but you never know. He was very appreciative and I know that he would have done the same for me. We spent last weekend up at Detroit Lake and tomorrow we are heading for Brownlee Reservoir in Hells Canyon for 10 days. This has been a great trip in the past and we are really looking forward to being able to just shut the boat off and drift for 4-6 hour without having to worry about other boaters or traffic. Golden, Bald, Eagles and wild horses will be all we will be watching out for for the next 10 days. We have gone up to the Yamhill river but have yet to do the locks. They are really doing a lot of work at the falls this summer. What is all the work for? Do you know? Hope to meet you on the river this summer or fall. Take care and happy boating.

P.S. The IBNW Burgee and the new graphics will be proudly displayed on the Snake river this next week. Thanks again to Mike for a great job with the Logo.

Bryan

[Patriot]

Bryan,

Well, I always prefer to find myself on the front end of the tow rope, because I like to build-up karma points for when I need to be on the other.

A couple of years ago I chewed up my prop and broke the vertical shaft in my outdrive while towing a boat back to the boat ramp (I ran over rocks near buoy 9 above the falls, because the buoy was out of position--my advice: give buoy 9 lots of room). Anyway, I gave a bottle of wine to the guy who towed me home. I didn't know at the time how easy it would have been to replace the broken shaft myself, so I paid way too much to have it done for me. Insurance covered more than half, so it could have been worse.

I've never been on Brownlee Reservoir, but I've rafted Hells Canyon several times. In fact, I was part of what I believe was the last party ever to float the "real" Hells Canyon, in November 1964, just before the river was channeled into the diversion tunnel for the construction of Hells Canyon Dam.

My next great adventure is a float through Grand Canyon at the end of next month. We're taking 5 rafts and spending 17 days to cover 295 miles. Lots and lots of preparation to be done for that trip!

But there's still time to enjoy the Willamette. This weekend is particularly good at our place, because the boat ramp in West Linn is closed for their annual West Linn Festival. That means that there won't be any boats on the river other than the ones that are moored here. Great time for water skiing! I hope the weather cooperates just a little bit.

[Patrick]

One thing I love about trailering my 30 ft. Bayliner is all the options available, where to go boating. This summer I have been to Detroit Lake, Lake Billy Chinook, Willimatte River(dwntwn Portland), Columbia river, Multnoma Channel. I must admit the fuel prices has limited my distance of boat travel some this year. I can go through 105 gal tank in a couple of days. But On a lake it will take weeks to do that. So I have spent more time at the lake than on the rivers.

Patrick

[II Lucky]

Patrick, we just got back from a week on the Snake River on Brownlee Reservoir. I burned just over 120 gallons of fuel for the seven days on the water. I could burn that in just a couple of days on the river. We had a great weekend at Detroit and then headed for Idaho. 40 miles of river and just six boats all week to share the water with. It was a great week. No problems, the boat ran great. We went with two other families with ski boats. The "mother ship" just floated most of the week while we used their boats for the water sports. The "floating bathroom" and "kitchen" was much appreciated by our friends and we had a lot of fun being able to get into their boats and blast around. The A/C worked overtime as the temps got close to 105 most of the week. It is a long haul from Portland but as you mentioned, trailering gives us some great flexibililty in where we can go. I would love to have a 45 footer and will, but will miss the weekends at Detroit and longer reaches of the Columbia/Snake.

[Patrick]

Im with you Lucky, I really like being mobile. I to would love to get a bigger boat, but that would keep us on the body of water we are based at. Plus pay moorage fees.

Over the years we have been to Lake Shasta, San Juans, Snake River, Willamette River, Columbia River, Multnoma Channel, Lake Billy Chinook and coastal cruise out of Newport, Oregon.

Three years ago I sailed with a family friend from Bleize to the Panama Canal on a 42 ft. Beneteau sailboat.....took us 3 weeks. Now that was a trip to remember!!