Joyce and I left Seattle around 2PM on Friday to run out to Neah Bay for 1 day of fishing. Fueled the boat on Sat AM and ran out to Swiftsure bank. Swells were 4' @8s with about 8kts of wind waves on top. Big tidal exchanges made the end of the straits a bit rough going out but the water was fishable thereafter. We trolled 5" tomic plugs down around 150' deep.
The day started out good with a 16lb king. I got the rod out of the holder and set the hook and handed it off to Joyce who did a good job bringing it to the boat. After that, things slowed down a bit and it was a fish an hour or so, we culled through a few and kept a 10lb chinook and a decent hatchery coho. But it was slow. We tried a bit of hali fishing on the Canadian side but the current was too swift to keep things effectively on the bottom. Came back across to pick up one last salmon.
Finally got a decent hit and could see it was another 10lb or so king. I was on the rod and Joyce had the net. The wind was up a bit and the water was slightly sloppy. The net I have is BIG with a long handle and a big hoop. Joyce reached out had the fish in the net but didn't let go of the bail so the fish was bouncing on a drum like surface. Then the next thing I know, she slips and her feet are off the floor and most of her is outside the boat. She let's go of the net. So here I am, nice fish on the line, net drifting away from the boat and wife almost in the water. Which do I save first? :lol: The answer to this puzzle is below...
I held the rod in one hand and grabbed the back of her life jacket with the other and pulled her back in the boat. She was nervous and a bit frantic but safe. I reached over and grabbed the leader and with one fell swoop lifted the fish into the boat. With the fish thrashing around in the bottom of the boat, I quickly cleared the down rigger balls, spun the boat around blasted 40' back to the net which I captured with the boat hook. So for those playing the home game, the correct answer is wife, fish, net - in that order. Now I know some guys might not play it the same way, but my wife's a keeper.
Humor aside, there's a lesson or two in this. We were still on troll, and she gone in, it would have been possible that she could have been hit by the prop. She was wearing her life jacket (as always, standard practice on our boat at all times) but she'd still need to get clear of the boat. I'm not sure she had ever thought of this type of situation so I asked her what would she do if she did fall in? She hadn't thought that taking a couple of quick strokes to get away from the boat would be the first thing so we went over that a few times and I asked her to burn that permanently into her brain.
We were in the cockpit, trolling on autopilot. There was no danger of hitting any other boat and we had a mile between us and anyone else BUT the kill switches are in the cabin 8 feet or so away. Since this kind of situation in not unusual, I'm thinking about installing prop guards and perhaps a kill switch in the cockpit. I'm also considering a smaller net for the times she needs to help net. While it's harder to get the fish into a small net, a large net on a long handle requires real strength to manage once it's in the water (with the boat moving at 2-3 kts). She doesn't really have the strength to manage this size net.
So the tally for the day was 3 kings, 16, 10 and 10, one coho at about 5-6 lbs and one wife (and a gentleman does specify the weight on that catch). :lol:
The day started out good with a 16lb king. I got the rod out of the holder and set the hook and handed it off to Joyce who did a good job bringing it to the boat. After that, things slowed down a bit and it was a fish an hour or so, we culled through a few and kept a 10lb chinook and a decent hatchery coho. But it was slow. We tried a bit of hali fishing on the Canadian side but the current was too swift to keep things effectively on the bottom. Came back across to pick up one last salmon.
Finally got a decent hit and could see it was another 10lb or so king. I was on the rod and Joyce had the net. The wind was up a bit and the water was slightly sloppy. The net I have is BIG with a long handle and a big hoop. Joyce reached out had the fish in the net but didn't let go of the bail so the fish was bouncing on a drum like surface. Then the next thing I know, she slips and her feet are off the floor and most of her is outside the boat. She let's go of the net. So here I am, nice fish on the line, net drifting away from the boat and wife almost in the water. Which do I save first? :lol: The answer to this puzzle is below...
I held the rod in one hand and grabbed the back of her life jacket with the other and pulled her back in the boat. She was nervous and a bit frantic but safe. I reached over and grabbed the leader and with one fell swoop lifted the fish into the boat. With the fish thrashing around in the bottom of the boat, I quickly cleared the down rigger balls, spun the boat around blasted 40' back to the net which I captured with the boat hook. So for those playing the home game, the correct answer is wife, fish, net - in that order. Now I know some guys might not play it the same way, but my wife's a keeper.
Humor aside, there's a lesson or two in this. We were still on troll, and she gone in, it would have been possible that she could have been hit by the prop. She was wearing her life jacket (as always, standard practice on our boat at all times) but she'd still need to get clear of the boat. I'm not sure she had ever thought of this type of situation so I asked her what would she do if she did fall in? She hadn't thought that taking a couple of quick strokes to get away from the boat would be the first thing so we went over that a few times and I asked her to burn that permanently into her brain.
We were in the cockpit, trolling on autopilot. There was no danger of hitting any other boat and we had a mile between us and anyone else BUT the kill switches are in the cabin 8 feet or so away. Since this kind of situation in not unusual, I'm thinking about installing prop guards and perhaps a kill switch in the cockpit. I'm also considering a smaller net for the times she needs to help net. While it's harder to get the fish into a small net, a large net on a long handle requires real strength to manage once it's in the water (with the boat moving at 2-3 kts). She doesn't really have the strength to manage this size net.
So the tally for the day was 3 kings, 16, 10 and 10, one coho at about 5-6 lbs and one wife (and a gentleman does specify the weight on that catch). :lol:
