Yes, today was a good day. Was planning on heading out for some crabbing and fishing. Brother in law and forum member Mitch were to come along. Yesterday, while prepping, had a few buddies stop by...one of them was D-Rock as he was heading out with Stang in their little cruiser today as well for some fishing. I offered to lend him a few flashers and tie up some leaders and gear for him. More about that in a moment. Got everything ready this am and by 5:30 we were headed out, launched, and burning gas heading out. We had baited up 4 pots and soaked them along the shoreline somewhere down by shipwreck. Checked in Drock and they were just getting launched. We were crabbing and got the lines in the water. Conditions were great. Calm water, some sun, a bit of breeze. Didn't take long for the texts to come in. One fish in the boat from Drock. Text from Buckmark, fish in. Nothing for me. Texts keep coming in....fish landed, second for us also from Buckmark. None for me. We are trolling faster, slower, using the same darn set ups I tied for Drock....nothing for me. We go pull pots, couple of keepers. We set them back, get to fishing. Fishing, not catching. Second pot pull, few more crab. Its now 11 and I've got one more hour to fish before I gotta get back and get the family to soccer. We put out lines, begin to troll and the bs starts right up where we left off. My inner ear alarm says fish and the rod by me is fish on. Get up, get it working, and bring in a nice average silver. Cool, skunk is off the board. 5 minutes later....the rod goes tick tick tick and slam it down fish on. Mitch is up and on the stick. Better fish clearly. He is working it in and brings it to the net. Sweet, we have gone from zero to hero in 10 minutes. This was his first time fishing the salt for salmon and I believe his best one to date. So from there we fish for a bit more then go and pull pots for the last time. Ended up with our two fish, 10 dungies, and one red rock.
Now, where it gets good. Mitch had taken home a pack of venison steaks yesterday. Bro in law had thawed out one of his. Mitch took home 5 crab plus the red and the smaller of the two fish. My family which included the bro in law, their neighbors, and his brother and g/f all made a feed out of the one coho, 5 crab, and a big ol venison steak. Add corn, some grilled up bread, salad, a few pops and it was quite the epic meal. Drock and Stang using my gear managed 2 fish themselves and I'm not sure about crab. Don't think I've ever had fresh crab/salmon/venison for dinner. I suggest you try it if you can.
So, overall, between all the family and friends......yes, today was a good day.
Here is the smiling Mitch and his first saltwater salmon..........
