Ship's Log May 2-5 2020
Family Sacrifices
After the sale of the fish from trip 2, I went home to Cedar Grove Ranch and spent some good times with Kristi and the boys. The ocean weather forecast was grim, so I made plans with the boys. Wyatt and I would make a birdhouse for his shop class, and Zac and I would go shooting. Then the 3 of us would go fishing somewhere for a trout or two. These boys ages 13 and 15 are getting very tired of being “quarantined” to their home due to this Coronavirus thing. They have been creeping out of their rooms, rubbing their squinty eyes and looking around wondering what happened to these last couple of months. They helped with dinner as we made our plans...
After dinner, I looked at the weather. This season set dates for April 20 to May 5th. It is May 1st. The weather improved a bit, giving a little window of time to leave May 2nd and fish through the 5th. A 3 day window of time for the finish of this little season 1 of 2020. I paced a bit. Then I made a loud statement like this. “I’M GOING FISHING!”
Oh the woes of family life with a fisherman! The family immediately accepted my intentions, we have been through all this before. I made plans to buy ice, then surprised Jeff with a call to go back to battle immediately. He was game.
Saturday, we prepped the boat, got ice and some groceries, and made plans to cross the bar at first light Sunday morning May 3rd.
We did that, and arrived back to the fishing grounds at near noon. We set our gear and began to troll. Our speed is still a problem in a fast current, and we were going too fast. Irritated, we just kept going, after tossing out the stabilizers, and our 36 inch drogues. (Sea anchors to slow us) This combination was not enough so we added a 5 gallon bucket to each stabilizer line for more drag. We were cracking up about that. I gave them an hour estimate of life, but they actually lasted the remainder of that day, but I’m not sure if they added any “slowness” to the boat. We were considering just running up North for about 10 miles, then turning and trolling south only. We were looking at our way flattened out deep lines as we trolled about 4 knots... I said to Jeff “These fish would be stupid to bite on those!” Then I went inside to just kick it out of gear and back in... trying to do the impossible. Before I could reach the wheel, Jeff hollered “PUMPER!!”
I ran back out to see my side had a fish on and we cracked up about that! Now what?? We pulled fish number one. After getting to the top of the tac, turning around and coming back with good troll speed we got number 2.
Day 2 we got 3 more. EEEWWW! So we ran well into the night to make a move North hoping for a better bite off Newport. We have high hopes! After all it was only a few days since landing 30 in one day. They gotta be SOMEWHERE! The next morning, we got a quick one, “They’re HERE!!”... then nothing for what seemed like forever. It was a beautiful ocean! Lots of rockfish, lingcod and short halibut. Salmon had taken a hike, but not to this spot. We picked up our gear and ran back down south to our familiar spot and trolled all the rest of the day for zero additional salmon. The season one was over, and this trip ended with 6 salmon. We spent what turned out to be a very ROUGH night at sea.
We arrived in Winchester Bay on May 6th and ducked into the fuel dock. Price of fuel was only $1.44 if you got over 500 gallons. We topped the James Lee off with 504 gallons. That is the entire amount used during this first salmon opener, all 3 trips. Fuel receipt says $725.76. Those 6 fish weighed 87.5 pounds. At 10 bucks per pound we paid for the entire 3 trips fuel with only 5 of those 6 fish!!
The boat is taking on a bit of water from around the bow. So today we get to pull it out again and have a look. That birdhouse will have to wait...
