Buoy10 2014
While I was whining and crying about having to go to my wonderful 3 year old niece’s birthday party on Saturday, I was wishing the worst on Jeff and his friends as they headed out to Buoy 10. I didn’t deserve the wonderful trip that I had on Sunday.
Poor Joey did end up getting quite sick, but not after catching a nice 23 lb’er. The boat got one more jack and a wild coho which was released.
They headed in and I met up with them to fish on Sunday.
It started out slow and spinners didn’t get anything the day before so we only put one out on Sunday with the other 3 rods fishing herring behind a flasher. We watched a few boats here and there hook and got one jack right off the bat, but nothing else for us for a few hours. As the tide changed, we headed below the Astoria bridge and watched the fog get thicker.
Zack got a nice 24 lb’er and as we were letting the rest of the rods out, I feel mine get bit. I’m just about at bottom and I keep paying out line. I’ve never had this happen and I can hardly think straight! Thank goodness for all the practice with back bouncing! I let out a couple more feet and finally set the hook. Fish on! This is awesome!
It takes me for quite the ride! I hit 80 ft on the line counter and begin to get worried. I let Jeff know that it’s going, 90 ft, 100, am I going to run out of line, 110, 115, 120 ft, crap! We head towards it and I was able to bring it back it. What a wild ride! We tango for a few more minutes and finally ease this beauty into the net.
I’m so happy and feel so bad for all the trash talking that I did the day before. What a poor sport! We find another school of fish and get everything back in the water and Herb gets a nice 21 lb’er. We hook a couple wild coho and finally Jeff gets his big king!
It’s 11:30 AM. We’re done! Forget finding hatchery coho, let’s get out of here!
Such a great day and all of Jeff’s hard work paid off for his first Buoy 10 trip! We won’t make it back this year as we’ll be heading out for Elk hunting, but fall salmon are in the air!!
A Little Proud
Well, I have to be a little proud. It’s rare when Jeff and I don’t fish together. We both work Monday through Friday and make fishing on the weekends our top priority. When Jeff gets called into work on the weekends, I typically am a little glad for a break to run errands but this weekend, I had nothing to do so we got his buddy to agree to go with me and took the boat out by myself 
I’ve rowed many times for a long time, but never without Jeff. For anyone who has heard about when I catch fish without him around, you know I’m like a little cat that brings a mouse to the doorstep. I’m so proud and can’t wait to show him what I did. Seriously, like a little kid and it’s a bit ridiculous because I’m 25 years old and don’t get that feeling even a little bit when he’s around. Only when he’s gone, do I feel the need to MAKE HIM PROUD! haha.
Another buddy of our was taking his new boat our for his first time rowing alone as well so we teamed up and pep talked each other through it. We got to the first hole which wasn’t as good as expected. Lloyd landed one and lost a few others and Andrew also got a silver. We stayed hoping for some more opportunity while Andrew headed down to find more fish. They were successful in numbers and got off the river well before us but we were awfully proud of the quality of fish we found. Hey, we fished until dark and only had 3 in the box, we have to make it sound good somehow
We lost a few others and got a few nice ones and headed home so Jeff could take us out on Sunday. It was a cold and slow morning, but we were richly rewarded with 3 amazing kings all completely sea lice ridden and as bright as an ocean fish. We didn’t find any silvers, but Lloyd got some rowing practice in, and we were home early enough for me to get this blog done after taking care of the fish and bait.
A great weekend and I’m going to sleep feeling extremely proud. A small accomplishment, but it’s a start! Now it means I can take a boat full of my best fisher ladies!! Dream fishing day
Pluggin’ it….
This weekend had much better fishing for me than the last
However, the fishing wasn’t as good in general. With all the rain we got on Thursday and Friday, the Puget Sound rivers got pretty blown out. The Puyallup was too high and unsafe for anglers, and the only other river in the area with pinks is of course, the Nisqually. We got there early to launch the boat only to find that everyone in the entire lower Puget Sound must have had the same idea. Not many boats, but there were so many anglers that we barely were able to launch the boat and I almost got stuck at the launch because there were so many cars parked in the way of the entrance/exit.
Once daylight hit, we really saw the water clarity and height and were immediately disappointed. The water had about 6 inches of visibility and we knew that there wouldn’t be much of an egg bite today. We did fish bait under a float in the first hole for about an hour and oddly enough, got a big pink! We tried twitching jigs and spinners and couldn’t find a fish. There weren’t many kings rolling around in the upper river so we headed down to see if the clarity was better in the tidal water.
Not much better down river and we still didn’t see any kings rolling. We fished for a few more hours before coming to the realization that the river was entirely too murky but were optimistic about Sunday. The river was dropping about 50 CFS/hour and it had to be in better shape the next day. Maybe less people with it being Sunday and football day too!
We were right about it being better on Sunday. Clarity started off about a foot which is still less than ideal, but we could work with it! We started off with our usual float and eggs and couldn’t find a biter so we found some plug water and was blessed with some biters! Even the pinks wanted in on those big, stinky K-15’s! They didn’t stick about 80% of the time they hit, but it was exciting to have some action and even more fun when we hit a king!
All in all, we went home with 3 kings and 2 pinks. I got probably the last tan of the year and I actually got to catch fish this weekend
Only 2 more weeks until Gray’s Harbor!!!!!!
Last weekend on the Skok
Clarissa’s husband, Curtis, fished the Skok Friday and says “I went 16 for 24 today. You guys gotta come out tomorrow.” So we do thinking it’ll be a quick morning and we’ll be out of there in no time!
Isn’t that always how it happens?? “Shoulda been here yesterday”. Fishing sucked and we hooked 8 between the 5 of us. 4 were jacks, Jeff and Clarissa each landed one and each lost one. The fish were biting their typical finicky way where nothing sticks and we headed out about noon. We hit the Puyallup Sunday and got stocked up on the eggs we wasted Saturday and managed to get a nice silver in the mix. Not exactly the way I’d like to spend my Sunday’s fishing, but I think starting next weekend, we’ll be full swing in salmon season with no breaks until November.
Here’s a couple shots of Clarissa fighting her fish. If I can’t hook one, I’ll be sure to be that good friend that captures your fight
FISH ON!!!!!
