July 17-Aug 10… 25 days
After salmon, me and Zac really attacked the boat and got it ready for the summer albacore season. Zac is 17 now. He is motivated to buy a new car. He does whatever it takes to get the thing done needed to perform the entire operation. Zac understands that requirement.
Wyatt at 15 is going to hang back and join up when things get more interesting. He also wants a new car. But will wait til the tuna are needing pulled in to earn it.
We departed on July 17th at 7pm. It was a blustery sea, and a very rough bar crossing. Lol!! Virtually all of our stuff in the house went flying, everything off the shelves, everything not locked down somehow. We were lucky that Wyatt had the forethought to put the little screw into the refrigerator door.
We ran all night, both kids were jacked up so I made use of that and they wheel watched while I slept soundly with faith and comfort.
7am we caught our first fish. I had gotten up at 5, slipped into my boots, peed, thought hmmmmm… set the gear. We got over a hundred fish on this day one of fishing.
Zeke on Sunset Charge called and reported the crazy high score of near 600. Way up north… so off we went for that additional 100 mile run. In the rough. Irritating. Broke rule number one. Don’t leave fish to find fish.
Spent a bunch of days with meager scores.
Day 12… . Zac had been getting up with me these past few days and joining in on the morning bite. Wyatt always sleeps in. Zac usually gets up about 7, and by then I already have a bunch of fish in the box. I like those quiet mornings, coffee, fishing, gettin… fishin… coffee… couple satellite phone calls… Zeke on the Sunset Charge and Calvin on the Julia C.
“You guys gettin??…”
Oh… “Hey Zac… ” He’s coming up from below… ”Go pull those fish in… there’s some fish on back there.” I’m not real sure about that, just assuming maybe..
At 12:37 pm day 14 Zac hit the wall.
Piled up on the couch in a position usually associated with a toddler mashed into a corner of a room on a blanket. Forget about it.
Wyatt and I took over the deck. I remember feeling kind of like I better keep things really clean in order for Zac to be happy when he gets back on deck. He had so much to do with the paint and preparation of that deck that all his moves were to keep it like that. His moves. I liked them!! Better than me at it. During his absence, I was very unusual with my instant rinse of the deck on every bloody fish!
Couple hours later he came out, put on his gear and grabbed the hose and a scrubby thing and brought the deck back up to par… then pulled a bunch of fish. Wyatt was always willing as long as the fish were coming… otherwise quick to boredom and the couch or the bunk… Lol!!
Food is always plentiful!! Zac even brought a little blender, and we had a bunch of frozen fruit and yogurt for smoothies every day!
On day 25 we were fully plugged with fish and returned to Charleston for the initial offload to get over 7 tons done into Fishpatrick’s labeled cans for sale thru fishpatrick.com. Then we headed to home port of Winchester Bay for a direct sale to the public. Brian at the Sportsmen’s Cannery got a couple of tons, and 6 tons were sold at the dock sale. Super thanks to all of those friends who came to purchase our fish. We brought the last 3 tons back to Chucks Seafood’s in Charleston.
During the entire trip, Zac, Wyatt, Me and Seanna had an incredible fun time. Zero conflicts. The kids both earned plenty to buy the car of their choice. In fact Wyatt already got himself a sweet low mile ride for when he turns 16 clear out in May of ’23… Bought and paid for. Zac will take his time finding his second vehicle entirely purchased with his own money and he is only 17. Well deserved on both accounts and I could not be more proud of these two kids!!