Finally Got a Fish On-Board

So the wife finally broke down and went out of Shilshole with me. She doesn't fish but is having the time of her life watching various sea-critters. While she is off exploring, I am trying to do my normal mooching-esque techniques in the LYK(little yellow kayak). The water is virtual glass with the only wave action coming from boats. I am giving the LYK just enough motion to get my herring moving.

Suddenly the rod doubles over with serious weight on it. It bounces up and down a couple of times, then the line starts moving straight down. I pull up, reel down, pull up, reel down. The line keeps going down and the rod just stays in that perfect bow shape. A sailboat on my starboard side has actually stopped to watch and see what I have. The way this is working out, I am pretty positive it is not a salmon but have no clue. We are probably at this for about ten minutes total. It is finally high enough in the water column to see flashes of fish and I still don't know what it is. It makes one final short burst down just to show me it still has a little gas left and I finally get it to the LYK. I am amazed to see an approximately 15lb Skate on the end of my line. It was very cool but I was also very happy to have barbless hooks. It made the release so much easier. I bid it audiu and told it to watch out for hooks in its food next time. Hopefully it will listen.

Whoa!  That is way cool man.  Pretty rare hookup.  Bet that was a great fight.

Supposedly good eating. Apparently many "scallops" served in restaurants are actually cookie-cuttered chunks of skate wing.

Right on!  Congrats on getting something to your LYK! 

you could put a hook in each corner of its mouth, and steer it wherever you wanted to go!!!

you could put a hook in each corner of its mouth, and steer it wherever you wanted to go!!!

That is about the truth. It actually might be steering me where it wants to go.

Way to keep at it Nate! Coho are getting stingy out there, but that might change soon. Don't give up yet, still plenty of Coho chances and Blackmouth season is about 4 weeks out.

Thinking about trying late this evening 6:30ish on...but not sure.