Salmon Madness

Today is the day that Ross & I went salmon fishing.  

Up at 0600, a quick bite, and then we were off.  We met up with our guide, Heather a few docks over from where we are tied.   Her fishing boat was a nice 25' Olympic cuddy cabin.   Given the typical weather having a cabin on the boat would be welcome.   But not needed today, the weather was clear, warm, and sunny.   I even got a wee bit too much sun!

The big coho Ross is holding is probably 12-14 pounds - nice catch.   Not only did he catch the biggest fish, but he also got the smallest, a baby king salmon at about 6".    I'm not even sure how the little one bit the hook.

We were fishing with a type of lure called a spoon with a single barbed hook.   Using the outrigger and a 12lb cannonball weight, we'd drop that to 50'-100' and then trailed the lure 50' behind that.  When the salmon hits the lure, the fishing line (50lb) pulls out of the downrigger.   Then all we have to do is smoothly crank the reel until we get the salmon to the boat (not as easy as it sounds).   We probably lost 50% as they got off the hook while we were reeling them in.

If we didn't have the downrigger, we'd have used banana weights to get the lures down to the depth we wanted.

I may go by the fishing store tomorrow and get a few spoons and banana weights...

Here is our friendly guide, Heather.   She was super helpful and patient with us newbies.   Ross gave her one of the cohos.

We fished around the area know and Mountain Point at the southern tip of Revillagigedo Island.

Six coho, three pink, an untold number of too small king, and a lot more pinks that we let go is the final count.

Ross is sending five coho back to FL.  Be warned, Cathy, real Alaska salmon is in your near future.  Make sure Ross shares!   Enjoy!

I was exhausted from the fishing, so naptime commenced when we got back.

We will be dining on one of the pinks tonight.   We have two more after that.   I'm thinking salmon for dinner tomorrow and the night after as well.

Here's a few shots of tonight's sunset.

And a beautiful old working tugboat.

Buenas Noches.