Ship's Log August 5th-15th 2020
Zac
Such a great story! I have worked with a lot of deck hands. I measure their worthiness by attitude and willingness. My son Zac... Amazing. He has had a lifetime of history with sea sickness and I was pretty worried about this trip. He puked as an infant on a halibut trip. He never felt comfy out there. However, he wanted to give it a go anyways. I am grateful for my good friend Larry Sarratt for running him from Reedsport to Ilwaco for me so that he could participate.
Jeff, Zac, Seanna and I left Ilwaco Washington on August 5th and in my head I intended to fish close in. Maybe out to 100 miles or so, but near shore so if he was too uncomfortable and incapable of eating etc I could run him home.
We ended up out at the 129 line, about 220 miles straight offshore of Oregon. We spent 10 days gettin um good! I will never ever ever forget the moment he passed me by and said "I like pulling them in!" I about cried with immense passionate feelings of happiness and pride. He is done with the sea sick thing. Here he is. He will always know what his old man is up to now. He will always have this experience of incredible fishing, super nice weather, and super bad weather. We spent those days gettin um good...448 fish on day 8. We spent days not gettin um. 33 fish on day 4.
On day 9 we awoke to another problem and had to run home the 188 miles one way in the extremely rough "trough" straight into Charleston. Late that evening we had a super loud break down of the arm that holds our 36 foot poles in place, it was very scary at first I thought maybe the freezer on top deck broke loose, or maybe a fuel tank below. I looked out and saw that the pole was slamming up to the boat and back out to the end of the lines and back up to the boat...UN NERVING! The "grasshopper" stable thingamajig busted and the pole was on its own...We got it under control and tied up good, then back in the trough for the remaining 100 miles in. Jeff had to climb up into the crows nest to untangle a line from the radar. Zac experienced pretty much all of what we go through out there, with the exception of being able to catch squid and sharks late night after dinner on a calm sea. We were just too tired after the 2 calm days we got. Those two days gave us 5 tons!!
I always know there is a good reason for some sort of breakdown and having to come in early from a trip. This time it is to switch kids, and spend a couple nights in bed with my incredibly patient and understanding wife. We sold the 8 tons we got on this trip. Zac made some great money!!
Tomorrow we will depart with Wyatt, Jeff, and Seanna. Wyatt is my second born son. He is 13 and eager to go.
