SO MANY SPECIES, SO LITTLE TIME

[AngleThis]

We arrived Nehalem Thursday afternoon, launched, threw pots in the bay, and deployed the camper top for
overnight at Brighton Marina. Hogjaw and company were expected but were nowhere to be found. Sunset crab pot
recovery yielded only females and shorts

Awoke late Friday morning, and with calm seas, ran all the way down to 3 arch rock, tossing pots into about 60 feet
of open ocean water a mile below Nehalem. Picked up our two lings in short order and one nice rock fish. Released
everything else. The wind started kicking up so we headed north. Ducked in to Geribaldi for a tank top off and lunch.
Then we headed back out and north to Nehalem. The winds were a bit higher than expected, with frequent gusts of
25 MPH. This made for some pretty nasty wind waves, and a small craft advisory was posted, but swells were no
higher than 4ft and we've seen worse, so we just slow plowed our way a few miles up the coast back to Nehalem.
Took a couple over the bow, and a couple over the transom, but nothing threatening. Pulling the traps in that water
was a bit tricky, but worth the effort…2 traps yielded 16 fatties. The wind persisted and by sunset even the bay was
pretty nasty and all the rented boats were recalled.

Saturday we commenced to fish seriously. Crossed a non-existent bar at 25 kts, and headed back to where we
found the crabs and tossed the pots again. From there we ran out about a half mile and started salmon trolling
north. Didn't take long to get bit; 15 lb Chinook gets head bonked and bled. We continued trolling north, toward the
small fleet just outside the bar buoy. A few Chinook were being taken, and we saw one double. About an hour later
I'm trolling just outside the buy at the outer edge of the bar in only 45 feet of water. My diver nicked the bottom and
just as I was about to real up some line, wham!…this is a BIG one! During the fight a passing boat crossed my line
with his downrigger, but backed up and it came free. Got it near enough to the boat for my diver to be out of the
water, leaned over, but didn't see the fish. Right then he decided to sound and all the way back down he goes. A
little while longer and he's back to the boat, but standing back for my crew to be manning the net, I still could not
see the fish..????. Holy cross-eyed freak Batman!…before I knew what was happening, a 38' halibut is in the net
and I'm having rock pile flashbacks…too cool!. We trolled around until noon, pulled pots with more crab, and headed
in for some sun bathing with the ocean still sweet aS pie. Then we pulled the boat and headed to Astoria for the
opener.

Sunday morning we crossed the bar about 90 mins after the low tide, and found the ocean a little to choppy but
planeable. Headed out to Bouy One, and found only a hand full of boats there. The main fleet was about 2 miles
south, but I've had such good look at the buoy we fished there. The Coho were everywhere; trolling west I lost
count of takedowns, fish released, and we picked up two nice ones, keeping a slot free for a big Chinook. After 4
miles I tu rned us around and headed back to the bouy. This four mile hop was the most fun I've had in years! I
discovered that given the direction, height, and frequency of the swells, I could hop from the upside of one to the
downside of the next, if I went fast enough. Adrianna being about 50% heavier than originally built (hull relay and
full of gas) landed the backsides with a gentle swoosh, instead of slamming. Only once did we get slammed, and
that was due to not punching it hard enough at the top of the previous swell. I figure about 20% of that run was
spent airborn, with only the outdrive submerged. With Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" cranked high on the
sterio, it was like surfing, water skiing, driving a sports car hard, and taking whoop-de-doos on a dirt bike…all at the
same time. After 670 hours, perfect moments were finally achieved in the driver seat, as man and machine became
one.

Shortly after dropping the lines back to 20ft, my next bite was what I had been waiting for; a big fat Chinook. With
60lb tough, 40lb maxima leader, and perfect knots all around, I didn't screw around with this fish. I muscled him to
the boat fast and hard, and got him in the net at only the second pass. Bonk bonk on the head and a 31lb chromer
hits the deck. Kept the next good sized coho and headed in at 11:30. We beat all the traffic back to Portland and
had plenty of time for a thorough desalinating scrub down for the boat, which ran absolutely perfectly all weekend
and burned only 30 gals of fuel.

Total count for the weekend: 24 crab, 1 rockfish, 2 ling cod, 2 chinook (15'# & 31#), 3 good sized coho, and one
good sized hali. Only big blue provides weekends like that!! Law enforcement was out there in force. We got
boarded once and checked three different times by two different law enforcement agencies. They were checking
everything; hooks, fish, tags, the works. The cop on the dock said my Chinook was the biggest he'd seen so far and
that made me happy as well.