Portland area, at least shoreside, remains spotty it seems to me. After having broken my second Diamondback backwater just below the ferrule while casting (Hello Gary Loomis, here I come), I've had to resort to my 14' two-hander which actually casts shooting heads (350 grain) quite nicely and probably saved my life while casting over some of the ledges I've been fishing. Good swell today despite the bright sun and pollack appear to be a major food fish of choice at the moment. After two nice schoolies at Two Lights, a nice fish hit my fly in the curl of a wave and screamed off into my backing while I frantically cleared the line in the stripping basket. As a friend of mine says, the long rod gives great leverage in this situation, and this fish headed down to the next cove before she stopped; all amid some monster breakers foaming the rocks. The one problem I've found is how the heck do you land a nice fish with 14' of rod and four to six foot swells? I timed the wash as best I
could and managed to surf it up to the mid-littoral zone between waves. A nice 32", heavy belly, which did unspeakable things to the hook--actually wrapped my 3/0 Mustad 3407 into a complete circle in the corner of her mouth such that I had to cut the fly off to get the fish quickly back in the water. I have no idea what kind of maneuver would do that, I'm just thankful the hook bent in the right direction. Two casts later a 9" pollack hit the same type fly. Go figure. At least I have a story to tell all those plug fishermen heaving mambo minnows and telling me flies don't work because they lack that "side to side" motion. Okay, quality, not quantity.