Intro/First Blood

skunkpatrol · 10-11-2005, 04:04 PM

Howdy. I've been snooping around the site for a few months now, and figured it was time to introduce myself. I started visiting awhile back when I was looking for a boat. I picked up a Hewescraft 179 Sea Runner, and needed to get some blood in it. Figured that'd be a good time to do the intro. This is a great resource and I'm glad it's here!

I'm a native Oregonian, and was raised in Corvallis. I grew up fishing the Alsea, Siletz, Nestucca and Santiam rivers for STS. Got the bug seriously in High School, and spent many a day walking the North Fork Alsea in pursuit of winter runs. Those were the days.

I went to school in Eugene, and got to know the Siuslaw, McKenzie, Rogue, Yachats and North Umpqua pretty well. Learned to fly fish and spent time in the Cascades chasing trout. Also got addicted to kokanee fishing at Odell Lake (jigging), and spent some time on the ocean.

After college I moved to Hood River, and the addiction spread to that river, the Deschutes, Klickatat and Columbia. I moved to PDX after several years, and learned to fish for Springers in the Willamette. Got over to Tillamook and finally learned to fish cut-plug herring, and then picked up a drift boat and tried to get better at that.

If there's water around, like most people reading this, I'm thinking about whether there's fish in it and how I could be catching them.

Now for the first blood story. I got my Hewescraft awhile back and have been out a couple of times, but hadn't put anything in it. Went to Tillamook last Sunday with high hopes. Fished the Ghost Hole in the morning and then the CG tower, and saw a few caught. Had some trouble with the kicker and after running back to the dock to take care of it, my buddy and I headed back out the Ghost hole as the weather broke to sun.

I'm a believer that going back to the dock, if only for a minute or two, gives you an opportunity to re-set your frame of mind. It's like you're starting out on a new trip. Well, I said this to my buddy as we went back out to the Ghost Hole. On our second pass, my rod went down. I let it chew for a minute and when it loaded up I set. It was a good fish and immediately ran away from the boat and under another boat! We finally got turned around and were going after it, but it had run out half of my line! After quite the fire drill we finally got close to the fish. By some stroke of luck, the line hadn't caught anyone's gear or been cut on a motor. The fish was swimming toward us, and as I lifted up its head my buddy netted it.

We pulled it into the boat and when it hit the deck, I was pretty jazzed about such a nice fish being my first one in the boat I just bought. Especially after the hassle getting it in. We took care of the fish, and then dropped our lines in.

About ten minutes later my rod goes down again. I hand it off to my buddy, but it gets off at the boat. We fish for awhile and then head to the dock. I decide that I want to check the weight on my fish and take it to the scales at Garibaldi.

I knew it was a nice fish, but you know how it goes when they finally get on the scale. This one was different. It came in at 47 1/2 lbs. on their scale. The guy took my picture, handed me a hat, and off I went, somewhat in shock.

Here he is:

I'm glad to be a part of the Ifish crew. See you on the water.