Man, what a day! I went out Saturday with my nieces hubby and we took
limits of salmon, crab and Ling cod and were back at the dock cleaning up
by 10:30am. The ocean was nice with only a little residule chop from the
previous couple of windy days. We had a gas and he went back to his camp
to let the wife and daughter know how great it is to fish with "weird Uncle
Mark".
So Sunday monring comes around and the niece, hubby and daughter are at
the dock at 5:30 AM to go have *their* fun! The first thing I noticed when
I got out of the truck was that I could feel a breeze blowing across the
parking lot at Depoe Bay. Hey!! This isn't suppose to happen. Well,
everybody was really stoked about going for salmon and crab. Along with my
nieces family I had my 19 year old son deck handing for me and we brought
along another nieces "freind".
As we went out the "hole" I knew that it was going to be a messy ocean!
By the time we got to the whistler bouy we were seeing baby sheep. By the
time we hit 30 fathoms (where we had caught fish the day before) it was blowing
15 and the wind waves were sharp and steep (not to mention WHITE).
We dumped the gear in the water and the first two went down feeling poorly. After
a few minutes we got our first hook-up. The guys were on the back deck (three of
them) and the two girls were sitting in the wheel house, one asleep and the other
looking like she *wished* she was. Pretty soon we were getting hits and hookups
every couple of minutes. Lots of drive-bys. Momma woke up her daughter to get her in
on the action. To the guys credit (they had already landed the first couple of
hook-ups) they started passing the rod off to the 11 year old great-niece (is that
right? My nieces daughter?). In the next couple of hours she had 12-14 fish on,
lost several as she lost her balance on the back deck and gave the fish slack,
boated NINE fish ...
EVERY DARNED ONE a throw-back 'cause it had a fin!!!!
I felt really, *really* bad for her! Even though she boated several fish, she felt
like she had been cheated out of catching her first salmon! What a bummer for that
young lady!!! I really DID want her to be able to catch her first salmon with "Uncle
Mark".
We quit fishing at 10:30 when it became obvious that we had three on the verge
of screaming for "Ralph". We only kept 5 silvers and one chinook for about 30
total fish brought to boat.
As I was headed in (and going fast) everybody perked up some. I punched
the numbers into the Plastic Jesus and asked where I was and how far to port in
which direction. Hmmm, we're 2.3 miles from the bell bouy, 2.5 miles from
the crab pots. Do you folks want to go for port or do you want to go get some
crab for dinner?
A resounding
"CRABBING" , OK, I guess they aren't as sick as I thought??
We ran in and pulled my five pots (an over-night soak for a couple and several
days for the other three) and we pulled out between 55 and 60 hardshell, legal
sized crabs. The 11 year old was in AWE!! Suddenly I was the hero in this
young ladies eyes! "When I go crabbing with my dad we only ever get a couple". :grin: :grin: :grin:
OK, the day wasn't a total bust! Six fish for the 3 older folks on board (my
boy and I weren't fishing, we were *working*!
) and I ended up being a hero in
this young ladies eyes! I got hugs and everything! She thanked me over and
over for taking her out! She'll be welcome to go again anytime! [img]graemlins/hearton.gif[/img]
- assAssin-
I feel just *horrible*!!!
NWSH, CCA
ANDYCOHO
Linear Mode
