Ship’s Log August 7-19 2019
Mark’s Eyeopener
Mark Kimball and I have a lot of history. When I was operating as a fishing guide between 1999 and 2005 I was working with Mark at his Steelblue Chameleon Lodge on the Elk River. The fall salmon and winter steelhead driftboat trips. He was my boss then, but we became quick friends and have remained so ever since. My family and I have done numerous stays in the lodge since then, and last year while we were staying at the lodge fishing fall chinook salmon, Mark mentioned at the dinner table that he wanted to go on a tuna trip with me. While racking my brain for an appropriate deckhand, I made a call out to him. He had just returned from his summer guiding trip in Alaska, but had a fish poison infection in his finger that needed antibiotics and some time to heal. I know his passion for fishing. We do not always get “fishermen” as deckhands. I really like it when I have a fisherman on my deck. Always watching the gear and trying to figure out how to get more fish to bite…
We set our gear at the last green can buoy off the bar into Charleston. It was about 2pm, August 8th, and I wanted to have Mark see how everything worked, and run thru the gear a bunch of times to get familiar with this operation. The first fish should start coming in a few hours. I like to drag my jigs thru the cool green water in case some sort of “camp meat” might arrive. It did. That’s all I’m saying about that!! Mark could not believe it but hey. Gottim! This is looking like it might be a great start! We did not get to the tuna til late, and ended up with 27 tuna for this first day run out to the grounds.
Mark was up right away. I always get up without any alarm needed. Well before dawn I boil my coffee and relax a bit, then get down into the engine room and start up the main. That requires a little toggle “on” switch which sets off the low oil alarm up in the house next to the wheel. It is very audible. That is how I always wake up the deckhand. When I came up Mark was already pouring himself some coffee. I get the boat into gear, line it out, turn on Mr. Autopilot, and run back to set the gear. I want whatever fish might be hanging around the boat feeding on whatever bait was attracted to hide under there overnight…
Day 2 gave up 278 fish. I had told Mark that he would be pretty amazed. He would be inspired. He was both, and very surprised at how easily the lines load up, rarely tangle, and go out again so smoothly. Lots of learning with the gurdies, and choosing the best fish to pull first, but Mark conquered that stuff with ease.
Day 3 gave another 271, and day 4 gave 272. Consistent numbers, and this is in addition to any fish less than 23 inches which we threw back. I really thought 23 inches would be 9# and up. Later on I learned a lesson different than that!! We were fishing a BLED brine market for a price of $3500 per ton. This year at this time there was a virtual shitload of peanuts out there. The overall average of trip 3 entirely was just under 12 pounds. We are cranking in over a ton per day regardless…
On August 12th, day 5 we had a lot of pain in our hands, arms, back, and everywhere really. I’m 51 and Mark is 58. We are eating very good meals, drinking a little bit of water, but probly not near enough. We got up as usual, but I remember this feeling of being pretty tired…The fish started coming on hard that morning. By the time breakfast pancakes were being flipped we had well over 100. It was not a real nice day weatherwise. Makes for a lot of work just staying on your feet! We had 411 fish on the counter at 6pm, and it slowed down a bit. We were really cracking up, laughable how they had been coming, the tangles, the fish flying everywhere, the bloody mess (over and over) and we just kept pulling and working them into the fish hold. BIG pile down there! The day finished out with 498 on the counter. A few were found to be un-bled thru the day, and I always toss those. I do not want a filet person down the road to find one with a bunch of blood in it when there is not supposed to be any… We had thrown back a bunch of peanuts too. Dinner was a big rib-eye steak, two baked potatoes each and a large pile of broccoli. Pretty easy to fall asleep after that.
August 13th, our 6th day and I remember pulling the curtain next to my bed and seeing some light. I flew out of bed, and did my routine while wondering if I had broken Mark. When I came up from the engine room he was pouring his coffee. I think we both murmured “holy shit”… Here we go… We went and set the gear to another frenzy of immediate fish on action. I remember telling Mark to just leave them on til all the gear is set. The fish would grab the jig as soon as each line was in the water. You have to ignore that and get ALL sixteen hooks/jigs out before you start pulling the fish into the boat. OUR HANDS WERE FRIED. So was our bodies but we could not just ignore the fish! At least for now. But about noon we had over 150 and I hit that damn wall again! My body was not working right. Kept going low on my blood sugar, irritating, and some would say dangerous. I was not taking much insulin, I did not need it. But I was out of whack, and I told Mark to stack the gear, “WE ARE TAKING A NAP!” His eyes got big and his smile got bigger. I couldn’t wait to shut down the main, turn off the hydraulics, and drift right here in the middle of a big fleet of boats dead center of a very productive day.
We were OUT until 4pm when I heard a vessel near us trolling by, looked out the window into the sunlight, and climbed out of the rack. Mark was walking up the stairs at that exact time. We had a Monster Mean Bean and went back to work. 230 fish on the counter that night. Weather was coming up pretty good, but the sleep that night came easy.
8-14 day 7 we moved up north against a blustery windy choppy sea. We put 170 in the boat that day. We found ourselves pretty close to Winchester Bay, my home port. We had to deliver this load up to Ilwaco, Washington in order to make the sale, and get some fresh live bait in the bait tanks. So on 8-15 we slid into Winchester Bay for a top off of fuel and supplies, and to see our families. We added 81 fish to the hold while traveling in. Mark was talking about his hope for a Bluefin that did not happen. We had managed a Mahi Mahi in the mix of it all though, and ate a bit of one for dinner that night. We were looking forward to our families.
With fresh supply we departed Winchester Bay on 8-17 at noon, and got 28 fish before nightfall. We needed to get up to Ilwaco. Not as many fish up North. This fish sale would ultimately cost me a bit, but I had an AAFA contract and plan to do what I had to do. The 18th gave us only 76 fish. On the 19th we pulled into Ilwaco with near 2700 fish on board. In 8 days including travel Mark and I put on over 1800 fish. We were not entirely filled up, but fishing up here was slow and I wanted to get back down south. We sold a little over 16 tons, cleaned the fish hold, re-fueled, and went out for some much needed booze.