ZeeHawk:
Woke up early to get out and fish for the hot Chinook bite that was supposed to be on. FishesFromTupperware was coming up from Oregon and running late so I made it out at about 5 AM. There was about a 5 mph wind that wasn't bad here but I think it was blowing pretty hard on the other side of the sound because there were wind waves at about 1 foot.
About 10 min after I put my rig in the water I had my first hookup. It felt decent and after only 30 seconds of hooking up he went airborne about 100 yards away from me. Coho! It jumped a few more times and the line went slack.. :'( I had a strange feeling the local harbor seal just got his breakfast. Put the rig down again and continued to troll. BAM! Fish on! Another decent fish that I played for about 2 minutes before the line went slack again. :'( This one stayed down so not really sure if it was the seal or just not hooked well. I pretty much thought my mojo was done since I usually only get a few hookups per day, but this was no ordinary day. 20 min later KA-BOOOOOM!! My line got a major tug and the line went peeling out right away. I grabbed the rod and every time I gain a little bit of line it went peeling out again. I fought for 15 min and had at least half my line in the water. I hadn't seen that line since I first spooled that reel! ;D. I started to finally gain some line but the fish wasn't done and made run after run still. The fish finally made the water boil about 100 feet from the yak when the line went slack.. :'( :'( I hooked up another decent size fish after that also got off and then, finally hooked up and landed a 3lb. Jack. FFTW finally made an appearance (Great to meet another NWKA'r!) we chatted a bit. I'll let him report on his catches.
I'm not sure why my mojo for landing fish was so bad yesterday. I had two brand new Gamakatsu (size 3 and 4) hooks on a hoochie rig and somehow they kept coming off. I was going to hit it this morning (Sunday) but I checked the WDFW website and the quota had been reached already. :o The fishing was hot and I heard people all day on the radio recording good fish.
Although I lost a bunch I think I learned more about RB and will shoot for for Coho here until we can keep Chinnok again in October. >:D
Z
Picked some blackberries afterward and made milkshakes... gooooood :P
gilla:
I haven't been out this year but reading the board on Friday night got me inspired. Of course I read about 10pm on Friday that the Chinook season was closing, so it was dig and I mean dig the fishing gear out of the garage, hit the sack about 1 am and the water about 5. I launched from Shilshole because it is close to my house. Wow I haven't seen that many trailers in long time. I used a deep six for the first time and it took awhile to get used to the pull in the current, it was much stronger than I expected. I was out for about an hour when I saw my pole moving, hmm seaweed? There was a lot of tension on my rod holder so it was hard to get it out, once I picked it up I knew I had fish on. I am a complete noob and jinxed when it comes to salmon fishing so I was sure I would F* this up, after following no protocol and just reefing the fish in, then whacking it with my net 2 or 3 times I finally got it aboard, Skunk off!! It was a 3.5 lb pink. The hardest part of the day was the paddle back I launched at Shilshole but caught the fish a bit north of carkeek, I was going to troll back but after 15 min of paddling I realized I hadn't moved from a point on shore, so I reeled in it took almost an hour of hard paddling just to get to the North end of golden gardens, I figured it was faster to run to my car than paddle it back. Anyway a big thank you to the whole board for inspiring me to get out and fish. BTW I saw a guy fishing out of a bright red kayak as I was coming, did you come down that far?
Aaron
ps sorry for the long story on a small fish but I only catch em every leap year or so
Pisco Sicko:
Sweet, guys. I'm jealous, over here in the desert. Oh well, the family and I are taking a long weekend in a couple of weeks to the north OP, and there should be plenty of fish around there, then.
ZeeHawk:
Good on ya for getting out there Gilla! I know it can be hard for us to get out there since we've got a ton of other responsibilities and WAF.. ;) It feels great to get out there though! And I didn't troll as far as Golden Gardens, just back and forth at the usual spots @ RB. Although I probably made that distance easily.. I paddled from 5 AM to 2 PM.. ;D
Z
Fishesfromtupperware:
My late report? I’m changing my handle to “Sole Man” Did’nt leave PDX till nearly 0300. Finally got to RB about 0700 and still didn’t get to the water till about 0900. Listening to the VHF while I was rigging, all I could hear was “fire up the barbeque!” and “two more in the boat”, “we’re having fish tonight!” By the time I was finally gotten to the water it was: “seems like it’s slowed down”, “I’m heading in”, “just heard the seasons over tomorrow”,,,, and then I launched. ::)
Z was not hard to find and told me where to go and about his sleigh ride(s). He said use a Croc and get it out and down about 30 pulls. So I rigged a kwikfish and decided to try my downrigger.
It was kinda cool watching the line drop to 70' on the ff with no weight attached to the line. A couple of bumps and Sole #1 came up. Back down again and up comes Sole #2, this one had all three trebles on the rear of my lure and a good sized salmon smolt in his mouth.
For such an aggressive biter, these fish offered no fight at all. I thought I was pulling up the downrigger weight or some weeds. Strange. Out again with a sardine wrap and it’s a foul hooked dogfish.
After an hour or so this I paddled over to Z to see how he’d done. He had his Pink but no more big rides.
“Should have been here earlier!” he very kindly did’nt say. Then I about scared him to death when I tossed my new camera over to him to get a pic and it fell 5 ‘ short into the water. I guess I should have told him its waterproof and has floaties (key ring floats).
I’d been dragging my line behind me and reeled in the last Sole or at least parts of him. He’d gotten tangled in the line and the powerpro had sliced at least a 1/3 off. Guess there were some happy crabs.
No Salmon, but it was a great day in the water and a pleasure to hang out with Z for a minute. I was quite pleased with the new fish finder mount and location. The downrigger needs a bit of tweaking though (bigger weight, shorter arm), but it looks like it’ll work out great! Looking forward to driving too far north again soon!.