As I am a relentless machine, Episode 17 of Whorde Tries to Catch a Salmon, a Tale of Woe and Despair, continued last Friday.

The boss made me take an unpaid day off, so I called my father out on the peninsula and since he had nothing else better to do than go fishing, I was on the 5:35 ferry.

Apparently phone calls are better than text messages. As requested I sent him a text when I hit the floating bridge at about 6:20. He got the message at 6:50. So we didn't exactly get moving when I had hoped.

In any case, gear packed, boat launched, checked his crab pots and got 2 keepers, conditions are great - slight ripple on the water, full speed ahead to the lighthouse. If you've ever fished off the Dungeness Spit, you know the standard procedure is to troll from the inner red buoy to the outer yellow buoy, so that's what we did. Lines in the water about 9. Started with diver out 25 pulls and downrigger at 40 feet of line. Fish finder showing huge amounts of returns from 9 am to about 2:30 pm. Pic is one of the heavier screens, but basically there wasn't 10 minutes where there were no returns on the fish finder for 5 hours. They just didn't really cooperate very quickly. Eventually lowed stuff a bit, then a bit more, finally I think we were at 60 on the downrigger and 75 pulls on the diver. Strike on the diver, good thing was watching as in our usual half assed fashion, the screw was lost so the diver was wired shut and can't release, but fish on board, maybe 5 pounds, not a hatchery fish but that ended 10/1 so WHORDE'S ODYESSY IS OVER HOORAY!!!!!

It was only about 10am though so we kept trolling.

There was a lot of tidal drift, and we were trolling way out compared to usual, and we were doing circles around the yellow buoy, and .... well, dont let the drift get you too close to the buoy. We don't have to worry any more about the diver not releasing, as it's stuck to the buoy tether. After losing gear we re-rig, get another diver in the water, and then 10 minutes later decide to check the downrigger. Apparently at some point the bottom had come loose, so when the fish hit, it couldn't release. Grab net, #2 on board. Bigger one, maybe 8 pounds.

So we kept doing circles, apparently in an immense school of something given what the fish finder is telling us, try various depths, we were going about 2 mph, tried speeding up to 3 mph, calculated approx actual depth of deep troll given angle and distance, figured out we were at that moment about 45 feet down, saw most of returns at 60 feet on fish finder, dropped deep troll to 60 feet and 5 minutes later fish on! Grab net, #3 on board probably about 5 pounds. How people constantly report losing fish I dont really understand. Three strikes, three in the box. In any case, by now it's about 2 pm. There are ... oh, maybe about 6-8 other boats around. I did see net out once, but was mostly watching Fisherman TV ... red dots moving across a blue background.

So around 2:30 or so, the dots all disappear. As in, we were probably seeing 20-30 fish in any given 15 minute period for 5+ hours, and now we're seeing 1 every 15 minutes. Moved around a bit, couldn't find them, it's getting toward 4pm, we're back by the red buoy, not a single thing on the fish finder, we're back at our 25 year go to of 40 feet on deep troll and 25 pulls on diver, and bam, deep troll releases. It seems weak, like fish fell off, but then fish back on, and bam, fish on diver also! Just then we lose the fish on the deep troll, but net out and fish on diver is in the boat. Another really nice one again probably 8 pounds.

Took 7 hours, but 2 limits and we head for the crab pots. Find a broken down, drifting crabber with his father and his little girl, sure we can help, pull pot 1 get 1 more keeper a really big one that makes 3 with the two we had on ice, pull next pot and wow it's heavy, probably 15 crab in it of which 5 are keepers, unfortunately I dont have a winter catch card as I didn't know season was open! Toss the 10 females, pick the two biggest, hardest of the 5 keepers and toss the other 3, drop crab pot right there in hopes of the 3 volunteering again, now with 2 limits of salmon and a limit of crab we tow the guy who is broke down back to the marina and while I clean fish, father runs the guy out to pull his pots since they were all less than 5 minutes from marina.

Now THAT was a successful day on the water. A good exchange for a forced day off!

And so ends the saga of Whorde Tries to Catch a Salmon, a Tale of Woe and Despair. I hope the next time this book is opened, there are MUCH fewer than 17 chapters.

Little did I know, this weekend would get better and better. This was only the first fishing trip of 3.

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