Fishing can be such a frustrating sport at times. We started a bit earlier today. The line went down at 05:35 to 70 feet on the downrigger and within 2 minutes we had our first fish in the boat, a nice 5 pound buck caught on a black hook (my standard, no red hooks for me). We lowered our gear back down and within 10 minutes had another fish on. Matt got him to within ten feet of the boat, only to see him fall off. "No problem" I said, looks like it could be a good day. Well that put the curse on the boat as we didn't see another strike for a good hour. Thing is, no one else was getting fish either. It turned out to be pretty slow compared to yesterday.. About 7:30 am we started to see some action. During the rest of the morning we would get a strike every 30-40 minutes. Now if I was on the Sound I'd be happy with that, but I guess I'm spoiled with the sockeye action and expect to get a steady bite and limit out in 2-3 hours. No such luck. We boated another nice fish at 9 am and then proceeded to have the fish do premature releases the rest of the morning. It really turned out to be pretty steady, I'd say we had at least 7-8 hits the rest of the morning. Lost one at the boat, and the clincher came at 11:30, just as we were calling it a day, the deep rod (80 feet down), slammed down and released. Matt grabbed the pole and skillfully brought in a beautiful bright hook-nose buck, at least 7 pounds. Just as I swooped to net him, he ran up against the downrigger cable and I missed the netting. Off he swam. Matt was devastated and I felt two inches tall. When was the last time I missed netting a fish? So for all the action we had we only brought in two fish. Makes me want to get out that much more. Interesting thing- all the action came on the deep rod. No matter what depth. I separate the lures by ten feet, and both both rods had the same black hooks. There is one difference. One dodger is just plane silver (no hits) and the other dodger is silver with a center that has the "fish scale" flash stuff on it. I think I'll pick up a couple more of those dodgers...

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