Rory's Salmon SlayRide Derby Report (pics)

First off, I want to give a HUGE thanks to Scott (kykfshr) for organizing this event.  He pulled it together in a very short amount of time, and it came off without a hitch. All who attended will testify to what an awesome, memorable experience it was.  Safe to say we'll want to make this an annual event!

And I am just speculating on this...but I'd be willing to bet Scott pulled his punches on Saturday so that he wouldn't catch a king.  These are his waters, he knows them very well.  If that's even remotely true...I sure wouldn't be able to do that.

I always love NWKA events because you can put faces and real names to screen names, and ya end up meeting some cool new people every time (in addition to getting to hang out with the regulars).  This time I met NWnoob, DoubleR, Nick and revjcp for the first time and they are all quality guys.  Hopefully I didn't miss anyone!

I'm still buzzing from what a great time it was (no, not from all the beer I drank).  And anytime you get together, have a good time with friends, fish AND benefit a good cause (HOW), it's a slam dunk.  The people of Westport were super, super cool too.  I think we created some good relationships.

I didn't get quite as many pics as I'd hoped, but here's what I've got:

Myself, Craig and Nate hit the water at 7am.  Looking like it's gonna be a great day weather-wise.


Little does he know, Craig's about to win this thing.  Or maybe he knew it the whole time!


I head east, against the current (not bad), with the intention of drifting back with the outgoing tide.  Down towards "the pilings" I see tons and tons of hookups.  I conclude I must be some kind of good-luck charm for everybody but myself.  In reality, it's because I wasn't fishing the place properly (more on that later). On my way back I finally hit one...just a lil bugger but gosh darnit I'm keeping it!

I ended up fishing for 6 more hours with only one other bump.  If I could do this day again, I'd fish very differently.

Back at the campground, Craig produces the winning fish.  Dang nice King!  Outwardly I am congratulatory, inwardly I seethe with jealousy

Fact is, Craig deserved to win it.  He's been working hard for Salmon and they just havent' been cooperating, so he'd built up a good stockpile of karma.  Plus he was fishing the place properly, which sure does help.

Here he is with his custom Mark-Collett-carved trophy after just inking a deal with konezone


Second place is NWnoob, who chose a flightseeing tour as his prize for his very handsome sized coho.  I rolled up on him just after he caught it and he was buzzing!  'Course I dropped my line right in the water to see if I could leech off his mojo

After placing second in a tournament, he's going to have to change his screen name!

Spot shows off some kind of small Scotty contraption he chose for his 3rd place prize.


4th place, Isaac.  He had everyone going on the radio that he'd caught a steelhead.


For 5th place, Bill chose a pump.  Word on the street is...he needs one pretty bad


For my 3.7lb goliath (dang, shouldn't have gutted it...could have been a 3.9lb salmon!), I got an empty envelope.  Actually, it's a 2-night stay in a Westport condo!  For a tiny salmon!  Only in NWKA.

Craig was sweating it as he saw me run up to the weigh-in right at 5pm.  He was much relieved when I turned my kill bag upside down and this small coho dropped out.  It also elicited a hearty round of laughter.  Poor lil guy.  Bill thanked me for pushing him up from last place.

Colby, Scott's family dog.  He is such a good boy!


I gotta say, we are pretty lucky to participate in a sport whose industry is very liberal with schwag.  Actually, it's not schwag at all, it's the good stuff. All who attended made out like bandits with stuff like Scotty gear, flashers, yakattack stuff, shirts, hats, $20 off coupons...all kinds of things.  None of it is the kind of stuff that collects dust in the garage.  It's all top-quality, very useful things.  I'm wearing my Ocean Kayak hat right now, I love it!  So, big, big thanks to all the sponsors and all the NWKA folks who worked with them to procure it.  I'll proudly represent for these companies, they are so good to us!

All in all a fantastic success.  Great to see everyone, share some fishy tales, and make some new ones!  We do again next year, yes?

Nice write-up Rory! 

I think everyone made out with more than their entry fee in swag.  I passed on the bigger prizes for two reasons; 

1) NWKA tournaments have been very generous to me over the years
and
2) I've been eyeballing that Scotty camera mount for months now.  It was providence!

When I get home, I'll some pics of the reason Fungunnin was forced to take a pump as his prize. 

-Spot-

Awesome write-up, Ror-dawg!

Whoa spot, we do NOT want to see pictures of why he needs a pump!

Awesome report Rory! Fyi. I'm stealing some of your pics to post on the HOW NWest facebook page.

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 Thanks Rory
  That's what I've been waiting for....a pictoral rundown of the results,the winners,and the smiling faces that come with 'em.So wish I could have stayed and been more of a participant.

 Hey Scott--were any T-shirts printed up for this derby ?I'd wear one proudly if they are available.

 So glad we all had a good time out there...want more already.

 Curious about Bill's need for a pump ?

 Any body got video of Craig's kiss of death on his king---Nate

 Keep the stuff flowing.I'll check back after work tonight.

Lets just say I was inspired by Dino's ride and wanted to see what the Adventure looks like with a slightly lower profile. FYI speed is greatly reduced when dragging your entire rudder assembly underwater.... so is stability.

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WESTPORT PART II

This isn't necessarily derby-related, but I thought I'd share.  After pedaling for 10 hours straight (mostly against the current) on derby day, I was exhausted.  I'd snapped one of the masts on my mirage drive and actually had to PADDLE in the last 2 mi.  The horror!  It's clear the outback isn't constructed for paddling tho



The original plan was to fish Sunday, but with the broken drive and state of my body it was looking like it wasn't going to happen.  As I was struggling with the drive to try to unscrew the metal nub (I actually did have spare masts, but they are useless if you can't get the broken nub off), Craig rolls up and says, "Oh, dude, I have a spare drive you can use.  And Nate and I are sticking around to fish tomorrow too." (paraphrased)  I knew then that I HAD to fish the next day, it was fated to be.  So the three of us sat around the fire that night and further picked Scott's brain about fishing Gray's Harbor.

Sunday morning I rose at 5am and headed back to John's river.  One of my mistakes the previous day was I launched too late.  I wanted to be in the channel with my line down BY 7am - 1hr before high tide.  This would allow me to drift with the incoming tide towards the pilings (the hotspot), fish there during slack, then ride the tide back.  No trolling against the tide, and fishing the 1hr-before-and-after-tide-change salmony time.  This turned out to be key.  Down at the launch I skipped past the lineup of boats (advantage: kayak), parked right down in front and started gearing up in the dark.  One guy who recognized me from the weigh-in came up and started chatting, and gave me another key piece of advice.  Use 10-12 oz of weight.  He said you can't effectively keep the rig in the king's zone with anything less.  He said he really, really wanted to see us get some kings, which is nice! That seemed like way too much weight to me for such shallow water...but what the hell, I generally default to what the locals say when fishing a new place.  I snapped on a 12oz ball and headed out.

It was super foggy and a little windy, but not un-doable.  I was as safe as I could be, a headlamp in front and one behind.  Sun poked thru briefly and made for some good photos:





Shortly after getting my line down in the channel, I hooked up:

Only slightly larger than the coho I caught the day before, but still...skunk insurance.  And tasty.

Halfway to the pilings I am feeling good.  I felt that with the gear and information I had, I had as good a chance as anyone out there to get a king.  And confidence matters!  As I was making minor adjustments, testing the drag, putting the clicker on, etc the rod suddenly jerked back hard.  I pulled it out of the holder, slammed the tiller to the left and spun around just in time to see the fish come up.  A king!  GAME ON BITCHES!  He peeled out drag on an initial unstoppable run, came up again, then headed straight towards me.  I reeled like crazy as he sliced across the top of the water, then went straight down under my kayak.  I had to pull an over-the-head maneuver and try to keep pressure on the line.  I was happy when he came up the other side and continued to peel out drag.  Couple times I had to crank hard on the pedals because he was heading straight towards other boats.  I wouldn't be able to handle a tangle or breakoff.  I am emotionally fragile.  Fortunately it stayed out of trouble and after tiring him out, he submitted to the net fairly easily.  Turns out he had one hook buried in his mouth and the other under his jaw.  He sure wasn't coming unbuttoned.

Here she is: 35" and probably 18 or 19 lbs.  I was absolutely crackling with excitement.  After all the king skunkings I've had this year...payback!


After bleeding, gutting and wrestling it into my kill bag (which was too small) I wasn't quite ready to fish yet...but since I'm anal about always having my line in the water I put another herring on, let out about 20 feet of line, loosened the drag and put my rod in the holder.  As I was drifting along and filling out my catch card, I almost jumped out of my seat when the clicker started screaming.  I couldn't believe it!  After the initial run, I tightened the drag a bit , gave the tip a little tug and settled in for another fight.  I saw the back of it and I thought, "Another king!"  That is cool and all, but what I *really* need is another coho to limit.  I fought it for a while and as it got closer I realized it wasn't a king, it was a very nice sized coho.  BADOW!  LIMIT!



As I was shoving this one into a hilariously overstuffed kill bag, three old dudes floated by in an overgrown rowboat with an ancient outboard screwed to the back.  They didn't wave, nod or anything. They just stared.  When they were past, I heard one of them say to another, "See, it's not a real boat...that's the problem."  I am not sure what he meant by that.  But I AM sure he's a jagoff.

So that was my Sunday.  Dropped my line at 7am and limited by 8:30.  Not that I was in a huge hurry or anything...I love being on the water.  But I had only planned on fishing til 10 or 11 anyway because it's 4 hours back to the 'ham.  Not to brag or anything (haha, isn't that what this whole post is about??) but I was the first boat back to the boat launch. 

I headed back to the Westport Inn to clean fish and clean up.  Scott and his family were there, about to go for a walk.  He was super jazzed I got a king, and limited.  And he was nice enough to show me the proper way to cure salmon eggs (thanks Scott). 

Here's me with the fish:


Good times.

The other part of my trip is a prequel.  I came to Westport the wednesday before to do a 1 1/2 day tuna charter.  I have wanted to do one of these for a while, but haven't actually done it because I get seasick.  I had one hellish day on a charter a few years ago where it felt like I had retched up all of my organs... and swore I'd never do it again.  But, the idea of whaling on dozens of albacore for hours on end finally overwhelmed me.  And since I was going to Westport for the derby anyway, the timing was right.

Good decision.  There were 8 passengers on the boat (3 of them kinda old and they pooped out early), and we landed 168 fish.  Which is all the boat could handle.


We were all tuna noobs, which meant there were alot of lost fish.  We probably hooked well over 200.  Our catches ranged between 12 and 25 lbs.  And these things are STUPID strong.  My arms were screaming at the end of the day, and my stomach and legs are all bruised from bracing the rod (fish belt would be a good idea). 

They are also quite nice looking:


Check this out.  Look how calm the water is.  We are 60 miles out.  The captain said he's seen days like this in his 30-year career...but not many.


The "small" slush box


The deckhand with a sunfish.  Probably one of the strangest sea creatures I've seen in the wild.  It's body is a disc of solid muscle, with fins. 


So, that's my westport weekend experience.  Definitely one of the more memorable fishing trips of my lifetime.  I scored 115 lbs of tuna and prolly 10-15 lbs of salmon.  So, pretty productive meat-wise too.  I gave some tuna to Scott as a thank-you for setting up such a great derby, and some to Craig for saving my ass with his spare drive.  I managed to wedge the rest into my garage chest freezer, and my girlfriend's freezer.  Gonna be eating tuna for a while!

Good stuff, wish I would have made it up there

Excellent report and congrats on the catching.

Rory,

You get my vote for the Post of the Month! Such a great story. You should can some of that tuna, it's easy and fun. If you were closer I'd bring my two 16 gallon pressure canners over and make it a party.

I may have to try Westport since I missed out this time. Great reports by all.


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Fantastic reading and fish porn.  "Way to go" to everyone who participated.

Wow man, that's a very productive weekend!

Awesome write up Rory!!  My favorite part, other then the fish porn, "But I AM sure he's a jagoff." Nice!!!  Sounds like you had a hell of a time sunday and on the tuna trip..  Out of curiosity, what size herring did you use sunday?  Good times, hope to see everyone again soon..

wow, what action.  way to go with paying attention on how to fish the area.  ya think you maybe used up all of your fish karma for awhile?