Well, sort of. She had a class over on Lopez Is today that goes until after dark. Not wanting to take the dinghy home after dark, she asked if I would bring her over and back. She suggested that I go salmon fishing while she was in her class.
So, I went out before I needed to bring her to Lopez. I've never had any luck with the winter blackmouth, so I quit trying a few years ago. Anyways, I set up one of the downriggers on the boat this morning and threw some gear in as well. There were a bunch of boats fishing off of Lopez Flast so I trolled with the current south toward the bulk of the boats keeping in 95 to 100 feet of water. I was using an army truck colored (I think) dodger and one of the thin diameter spatterback hoochies.
After a few bumps and bottom releases, I was turning away from the bottom rise when my rigger popped, another bottom bounce I figured until I noticed the rod tip pulsing. I could tell it was a small fish, but I was pretty excited to even catch anything, I'd have been happy with a rockfish or flounder.
It turned out to be about 16 inches and I didn't even look to see if it was hatchery or wild. Beautiful colors on it though, too bad the photo was fuzzy.
Soon, it was time to go get my wife so I pulled up and motored around the island. I checked to see if any geese were hanging where I could sneak on them, but none were around. I pulled two crab traps that island folks had apparently forgotten were out at the end of the season, tossed one legal sized and two shorts out of one pot.
After I brought my wife to Lopez, I figured I would fish the area between the islands even though noone else was there. There were a bunch of Guillomots and Murrelets so I figured there was at least some bait around. Well, after about an hour, I decided to troll past a wall figuring maybe I could pull a lingcod out for a little axcitement anyways. I trolled past it and then circled back. I came in a little too close and as the bottom jumped up from 115 feet, I popped the line off the downrigger and hit the up button. As I slowly pulled the dodger up, I jigged it a bit. All of a sudden, BAM, fish on. It felt like a nice ling so I played with him a bit. I noticed the boat drifted over the ledge and I was now in about 35 feet of water so I put the boat in reverse to get away from the rocks. After a couple of nice drag-pulling runs, I had gained enough line to see the fish, and WOW! A flash of SILVER?? Holy crap, a salmon, now the sweat started.
Well, I managed to get him up after he made a run under the boat and saw he was a hatchery fish so stabbed the net under him and WOOHOO. No thanks to Amber who was pretty much ignoring me and didn't even offer to help net my fish. Good thing she's at least better on ducks.
Anyways, she was 32" long and weighed a touch over 16 pounds. I swear she felt like 20+ though.
Good thing duck season is over tomorrow....
