    
Danielle (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 | | Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 2:56 pm: | |
What a trip!!!
My husband John & I have been activily fishing here in Washington for about 5 years. We started out fishing trout in tons of lakes all over the state. A season or two of that and we had moved on to salmon. After a few years of Coho and Steelhead, we were set on catching our first Kings. Our first attemps in Elliot bay and on 14+ person charters out of Westport & Ilwaco produced lots of Silvers, but still no Chinook. So we decided to forgo the typical 14+ person charters for a small 4-6 person charter out of Chinook that we had found online. John found a couple fishing buddies, Rick and Dana, and we set up the trip.
Since we live 3 hours north of Chinook, we decided to head down the night before. So this past Sunday afternoon, we picked up the babysitter for our 1 year old daughter and headed south. We checked into our rooms, had a little Mexican food, and called it a night.
Rick and Dana Met us at 4:30 Monday morning and our party headed to Chinook. Due to my splendid planning, and perhaps a little over-anxiousness, we showed up at the docks at 5am sharp which was about 1/2 an hour before Captain Dan Heasley of 'Fishin Time' showed up right on time at 5:30(ooops, sorry guys).
Fishin' Times' "Storm Runner" is a custom built 27' aluminum boat with really big motor. You'll have to ask my husband or Dan about the boat details, but, I will say that it was an extremely smooth and impressively fast trip over the bar. *Note- even his rods are custom.
We hooked a few small Kings and some Silver pretty quick, then, around 7:45 I yelled, "Fish On!" and quickly realized I was dealing with something that I had never encountered. After at least 25 minutes, I landed my first Chinook- weighing an impressive 32lbs! I must say, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS IN FOR!!! I thought my arms were going to fall off. After 10 minutes, that fish had been called about every name in the book- my antics clearly startly my husband.
We kept along- hooking quite a few silvers, keeping a few between 10-15lbs. Then about 8:30, I heard a few exclamations of disbelief as Capt. Dan anounced, "She's got another one on!". It took 15-20 minutes to land this 27lb beauty, but after my fight with the first fish, it might as well been 45 minutes!
Having a 1 fish limit on King, this one was decidedly my husbands. With that in mind, I almost made him take the pole to get this one in, although it was mostly because I wasnt sure Id be able to get this one in. He assured me I could do it- I think it was because he had so much fun watching me run around the boat, sweating, swearing, and reeling as if my life depended on it.
I will say, amidst the taunting, the laughing, and the overall entertainment the guys seems to be getting out of the whole scene; they did manage to holler out a few word of encouragement, which by the end of each fish I was really needing. Thats fine guys, laugh all you want, these were my first kings and I wasnt about to let one get away.
I wasnt the only one to snag a King, Dana had a 20-25lb'er at the boat that pulled its hook before it could be netted, which was really disappointing. Then around 10 my husband hooked & landed a 17lb Chinook that was a real pretty fish for a Chinook.
By 10:30 or so, we only had room for 1 more fish and really wanted one more nice Chinook, but after throwing back a few really nice size Coho, John pulled in one that was a little over 16lbs so we all decided to call it a day on the salmon.
We ended the trip by checking a few crab pots that Dan had set out for groups that might like to take home a few crab in addition to their salmon- talk about setting up next weekends barbeque!
I know most of the charters out of Ilwaco have been limiting by noon and are catching 90-95% Coho. They race out to the buoys around buoy 10 where the silver are pretty thick, limit as fast as possible and race back in. We went out on a bigger charter about a week prior to this trip and limited around 10:30 on a boat of 16. All silver between 5-9lbs. It was fun- nothing like this last trip though and not much more $ either.
We ended up docking with a well of 154lbs and an average fish weight of over 15lbs.
Not to shabby.
-Danielle Martin 8/26/03
*Fishin' Time:877-642-1100, <fishintimeguides.com>
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