I've been itching to get out since Sunday with all the nice weather so finally saw my opportunity tonight as I got home from work about 5:15 and the wife was heading out to go to a class so kissed her good-bye and quickly changed clothes and hooked up the Tin Cup and made a beeline to Lake WA at Atlantic City boat launch.

Was on the water and motoring over to my usual haunting grounds to start my evening troll. Had a few new things I wanted to try so started with a 3" gulp shad threaded on a "death roll" mustard hook with a smiley blade ahead of it so put it out 100 feet behind the boat on a 2 ounce weight and headed north along the west side of Mercer.

At 7pm turned on the Mariner game and wasn't getting anything to bite so switched over to a whole herring rigged up so it had a nice curve in it that I learned how to rig up springer fishing last week and sat back waiting for a bite. By the start of the 3rd inning it was getting dark so moved to old faithful Brad's cut plug and gave it a flash and dunked in sockeye/kokanee dipping sauce and put about 60 feet behind the boat and 19 feet on the down rigger line. No sooner did I get back in my seat the rod started dancing so grabbed it pulled off the clip and fish on!! It had some weight to it but of course on the ultra light lamiglas rods they all feel like big ones!! haha Anyway this one didn't want to have anything to do with my net and went ballistic as I got it close but managed to get it in the net before it came off. After getting it in the net realized it wasn't going to get off as one hook was in his stomach and the other in his gill plate so he bled out pretty quick.

Now I needed to get going as it was getting pretty dark and didn't bring along my lights as I should so quickly buttoned everything down ( I thought) and fired up the main motor and zoomed across to the boat launch. As I got out of the boat to secure it so I could go get my truck, looked back and realized what I had forgot to do~ Yep, forgot to bring in my down rigger ball and all that was left was a loose braid trailing in the wind with no ball attached! Darn! Oh well, that is one more thing I need to put on my check list before starting the motor!

See you on the water!