Hey ya’ll enjoy the video update =D!
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Hey folks!
Here ya go :
Until Next Time, “F.O.B”
Morning folks!
Sorry its taken so long to get these updates done. Late nights, and busy days have really slowed this part down a bit. However we are here now and giving updates!
Thursday:
Not much to tell here. Lonny and I hit the water pretty early and spent most of the day fighting the undertow and wind. Needless to say that day we caught a couple fish, but nothing to keep. That was a bust day.
Friday:
A different story altogether. Lonny and I went out caught a bunch of herring, while we waited to see if Jim and Carroll was going to able to make it. In the end they did and a good thing too, they brought us some much needed good luck! I caught the first fish of the day, just as the tide was starting to turn. It ran straight for the rocks of course, but I was ready for it and muscled him out of them before he got set. He fought me the whole way, in the end he was netted and in the boat, and measured out at bit over 32 inches. Shortly thereafter Lonny hooked into his fish, which also put up a nice fight. His guy came it at 31 inches. Pretty much after we got Lonnys fish in the boat the tide was atrocious, so we tried another one of our little spots. This is the area we have had fish on but always lost them for one reason or another. Today however was a 50/50 split. I hooked into another fish and handed it off to Jim, that fish was a fighter! After a few minutes of a fight, the monster rose from the depths. WOW what a Ling, unfortunately though, some malfunctions came into play and eventually the fish swam back to the depths. My guess was he was 36 inches if not more. Sad pandas all around for the loss of that one. We reset our drift hoping that the same fish would be gullible enough to take another bite, but no such luck. I did however hook into another one, which I handed off to Carroll, “its just a little one” she kept saying. Granted it didn’t give her much of a fight, but when it got to the surface and we got it netted, it measured out at 28 and change inches. Hey Carroll, not so “little” after all =D. That was pretty much it for the day, and a long day it was. You can see the fishes in the video later.
Saturday:
Was a heartbreaker. Mathias and Elijah went out on the boat with us. Elijah was kickin butt catching the herring and was having a ball doing it. Mathias was of course helping just a little, but for the most part the little guy was casting and catching on his own with the herring rig twice his size! The herring weren’t in droves, but what we did catch were quality. Nice size and meaty which is better than a bunch of small fry. Tides did not play nice at all that day, when the tide turned it got ugly in a hurry. I caught 1 baby Ling just before the tide did change, which was it for me that day. We decided to run over to the place we caught some fish the day before and try our luck there. Not much over here today, some nice hits, and few takes that the fish ended up winning. The heartbreaker for the day though goes to Lonny. We are drifting along when he hits what he thought was a snag. Gives it a jerk, and starts to reel up. Holy crap his rod is bent waaaaaay over. I look over and it looks like dead weight. He is heaving it up and it is heeeeeeeeeeavy, making his rod bend double. I look back over and asked him if it was fighting back at all. He was about to say no, when the rod bend even further over and the line starting to sing. That answers that question, not a big hunk of barnacles after all! A good 5 minutes roll by and we finally get a look at whats on the line. HOOOOOOOOOOOOLY CRAP! Monster alert, *Sirens start to blare* *people start running for cover*. Mathias grabs the net and like the amateur that he is tried to swipe at it from overhead. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Lonny and I yell at the same time. UNDER the fish NEVER OVER. At that point I tell him to come back take my rod and reel it in and I will take over net duties. Luckily when he touched the fish with the net it immediately bolted back toward the depths. Now Lonny has to heave her back up. She resurfaces I get my swoop on and in the net she comes. Once in the boat we notice how she is hooked. Not in the mouth at all, but right on top of her head. We guess she took a swipe at the passing bait, missed and when it hit her head Lonny jerked about that time. Now the heartbreaker. We measured her out and she wouldn’t even fit on our measuring decive, which is set up for 36 inches exactly which is the max size we are allowed to keep. She was flopping over by a good 1 1/2 inches if not a little more. It was a hard thing to do, but back over she went to frustrate another angler on another day. So at this point Lonny has hooked and landed the largest fish of the year. Here is the proof…
She was a beautiful fish and the head on her was humongous!
Last but not least here is the Video that was taken of some of the days. The video for Saturday is only half an update. We got in a rush and forgot to film the end of the day part. That’s how it goes sometime though, life happens =).
That’s it for now, thanks for stopping by!
Until next time, “F.O.B”
Morning Everybody!
Welcome back. Today I have another video update for your enjoyment. I actually got some footage of us catching some fish. I will tell ya this though I need to figure out a better way to have the GoPro mounted, other than on my head. That however will be a task for another day.
Yesterday was pretty much a beating, the wind and current was doing some weird stuff, which was making our lives miserable. We lost quite a bit of gear yesterday because of the weirdness. Lonny lost the most having his reel completely stripped of his 120 yds of braid and 10 yds of mono filler. Brad and I lost weights and leaders like crazy. Not to mention Brads AWESOME ROD! I am pretty surprised that thing actually held together long enough to get that Ling in. First time I have ever seen a rod bend like that down by the butt section. Normally its just a break and done, not bend over like that was.
Anyway here is the video for ya’s…
As promised here are some pictures of the last couple of day for you to peek at…
There you have it folks, gonna call this one a done deal. Have a great day and we will cya next time.
Until next time, “F.O.B”
Good Evening Folks!
Just a quick video update tonight, its late and I’m whoooooped. Hey guess what?!?! I actually took footage of the fish so you can see them.
I have tried over and over to get some good underwater footage, but it seems like the color clarity in the Pass just wont allow me to get nice video =(.
I will however try and do some filming while we are fishing tomorrow. I will wear the silly head band and hopefully at least get something from that perspective.
So without further ado…
Good night and everyone sleep well!
Until next time…”F.O.B”
Morning Everybody.
First thing I would like to do is wish all the Mothers out there a Very Happy Mothers Day! Hope everyone of you have a very special day.
Now for the update. There is a quick video report which is here…
It was a good day, 4 on the boat and 4 Ling Cod keepers retained. Also brought home 1 more Greenling to throw in the freezer.
Now for the pictures, one of these days I will remember to break out the video camera and get some video of the fish. Until that day though you get to settle for pictures of them =)…
We ran a pretty tight race for the sizes today, 26 1/4, 27 1/2, 28 1/2 and 30 1/2 all the perfect size for filleting. Once they get over 31 inches they start to become cumbersome to work with.
Ok folks, thats about it for now, need to get ready to visit my mother-in-law Marcy. She is the only Mom I have left and honestly been more of a Mother to me than my birth mother ever was. So see you soon Mom, Love ya much!!
Until next time, “F.O.B”
Morning folks!
Another quickie update on our fishing season thus far…
Wednesday, Lonny, Dad and I headed out to see what we could catch. The day started out pretty good, little overcast but tolerable in the temp department. We first tried the little cove right by the marina for herring, no luck there at all. We decided to head down to the long drift to see what we could pick up, I did something we normally don’t, I took us down toward the convergence first. Darn good thing I did, we found herring paradise. All told we caught 60+ herring of different sizes in around 30-45 minutes. It was awesome!
At that point I point us to our drift area for Lings. We get into our first drift Lonny first drop and BAM, F.O.B! Nice little keeper coming it at 27 1/2 inches. Now I’m thinking its gonna be an easy day… NOPE. Dad starts to pull up a fish, Rock Cod, I pull up a fish, baby Ling. That was how it was the rest of the day, Rock Cod, and baby Lings and Red Irish Lords. Not to mention the weather and the tides turning miserable on us. Bah score another one for Mother Nature and her finicky ways.
Yesterday was the opening day of Halibut, so that’s what we were going for. We headed out around 8:30. With such good luck the prior day at the convergence we decided to start there today and see what we could find. Just our luck, the party from yesterday had moved on. So we search and searched, we did pick up a few herring during our search but nothing compared to the day before. We decided we would have to forgo any more and shoot the pass while the tides were in our favor. Going through the big pass wasn’t gonna happen once we got closer, the tide had already turned mean and was churning up the water pretty bad. Oh well plan B, hit Canoe Pass! Piece of cake, blowing the puny horn the whole way we shot through without any issues. See sometimes we aren’t so bright, the pass being what it was should have gave us a hint of what was to come… we turned the corner to head out to Burroughs Bay and it was EVIL. Rollers and chop egad. Not little friendly 1 foot rollers and little chop that slaps gently on the hull to lull you to sleep. I’m talking 3 ft swells and chops that would be anything but soothing. Here again, read not too smart… we went for it. Tell you one thing though we took it nice and easy. We were tossed around quite a bit, but going slow and steady we made it out to the place we wanted to fish.
This year being our first year we are taking Halibut seriously, I don’t expect great things, its mostly going to be a season of learning what to do and not to do, where to go and what to use, how to use it etc etc. We anchored up and started preparing our rigs and bait bag. First lesson learned its not like Ling Cod rigs, tie and rig that shit at home, your will have much less frustration. Ling Cod rigs are bam bam done, Halibut rigs have many more moving parts and really shouldn’t be done on a boat that is being rocked around so much =D. Second lesson learned, bring a BIIIIIIG weight for the bait bag. Most people use their downrigger to send down the bait bag, which has a 10-12 pound weight on it, which in turn keeps it directly under the boat. When you don’t have a downrigger you improvise, we put quite a bit (close to 5 pounds) of weight on the line and in the bag itself, and it still wasn’t enough weight to keep the bag under us. Bah well we need to use what we have so we let it out and hoped for the best. Lesson #3 and a painful one, if you let someone use your gear, make sure they give it the respect and cleaning it deserves after every use. Last year I loaned out my Halibut rod to be used for Ling Cod, yes a little overkill but it had to be done. When I went to get my rod ready for this year I noticed the dreaded green corrosion on the eyes. Oh man whoever used it last didn’t wash it down with freshwater when they brought it back, and it sat in the garage all winter. Well after cleaning what I could and hoping there was no deep corrosion I decided to use it. Yep you guessed it, went to drop my rig to the bottom… snicker snack one of the eye rings popped off the mount. Determined not to have that ruin my day, I grabbed the pliers broke off the ring and pinched down the mounts. Don’t misunderstand me, the pole itself I found on sale for $25 and its not the best rod in the world, its a bottom of the line Penn. The whole point is, it shouldn’t have happened, 2 minutes of care and it would still be good as new. Now I have 2 choices, buy a new rod before we go out again or try to find an eye for it and get that on before our next trip. Not to mention I now have to hope that none of the other eyes that were exposed to the abuse don’t give up the ghost. Those were our lessons for this trip.
We didn’t catch anything yesterday, although I did have something messing with and eating my bait the whole time we were out there. Not only did we not catch anything, from what we could tell all the boats that were around and near us didn’t catch anything either. Lots of sad panda Halibut fishers.
Something nice did happen though… it mellowed out for us and got down right pleasant to be out there. We split a storm that evidently hit areas of the Island pretty good. Our ride back was stellar, other than having to dodge a bazillion shrimp pots.
Today we are going to be hitting the water again, this time Jeremy and Chris will be coming along and trying their hand at Ling Cod fishing. I am hoping we can get them into their first keepers, and also hoping Mother Nature plays nice today. I think she owes us a few nice days, since she has really put it to us this past week.
I have also picked up a couple of short stories this past week that I will share at a later date. So that’s something for ya’ll to look forward too.
That be all for now
Until next time, “F.O.B”
Hello everyone!
Just a quick update for today, pretty much the video says it all…
Of course we can’t forget the fish porn pics… will update with Lonnys pic soon as he sends it to me!
That’s it for the day, since we finished early now I get to go mow the lawn. (BOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
Until next time…”F.O.B”!
Morning Everyone!
Figured I would throw up yesterdays update this morning, since I was occupied with something else last night, which I will show you later.
Yesterday wasn’t one to write home about, that for sure. However it was a beautiful day to be on the water, and we had great company along to pass the time. “Barnacle” Brad made it up, and a new fishin’ friend came up with him, her name is Vivian. We also had Mackie along for one of his last 2 days in town, and of course there was me and Lonny.
The day started out with a lack of herring, we did find a few but they were playing hard to get. Good thing we decided to bring the frozen herring as a just in case measure. Past experience has taught us that sometimes they are just hard to track down so have a back up plan.
We make sure everyone has their gear ready and I pull us into our first drift of the day. Brad and Mackie get their gear in the water, Lonny is showing and explaining to Vivian what to do, slowly releasing her line down to the bottom, touch bottom, lift up, bam “F.O.B”! Lonny hands off the rod to Viv, so she can get a feel for how her new rod reacts and feels when there is a fish on the line. She cranks and cranks and brings up the first fish of the day a Greenling. Not exactly what we were hoping for but fish in the boat is a good thing.
Folks I don’t care what people think, there is a such a thing as beginners luck. 99% of the time when we take someone new with us fishing, they are the ones that catch their Ling Cod first. Viv was no exception, I’m not sure if it was her 2nd or 3rd drop, but tick tick, bam “F.O.B” and it was a nice little fighter for her. Not sure who was tuckered out more after that fight Viv or the Ling. Here is a picture of her with her very first Ling… 27 1/2 inches of deliciousness…
After Viv caught her fish I was up to bat to try and get a Ling. My season so far has been less than stellar, I think a lot of it has to do with me wanting others to catch fish more than myself, so I am paying more attention to them than to my own fishing. I have lost a few monster hit, and fights so far. Its not as though I’m not getting fish, they are just smarter than I am at this point in the season. They either get my bait, get me snagged or just plain old out fox me and get off the line while the fight is on. Today however I finally got a little revenge on one of those buggers… 29 3/4 inches…
Mackie unfortunately had another frustrating day. He hooked 3 more ling that were under size limit, and a Black Sea Bass. None of which we were able to keep. I really want him to at least catch one keeper before he goes home today. Its always great to have him around, he is such a great guy and a a really good friend. We will miss him when he goes back home.
Brad had a frustrating day too. Remember that whole thing about the fish being smarter than I am so far this season, well they are doing the same thing to Brad. Nice hit, and into the rocks they go. Snap, pow, tie a new leader on. After a half dozen of those in less than an hour and anyone’s frustration level will rise. The day wasn’t a total bust for our boy though, he did manage to catch Taco 1 and Taco 2, 2 nice size Greenlings that will make wonderful fish tacos! He also landed and released 2 Brown Rock Fish. 1 of which made for a nice Eagle snack.
Lonny had an off day also, he did manage to land a couple of Red Irish Lords, that Viv took home with her to try. He did have some reel seat issues on his new rod and reel, when he was pulling up the first fish he hooked the reel just kind of popped of the rod. NOT COOL. I try to help him get it situated but it keeps jumping off, finally he holds it in place long enough to get the fish in. After a thorough inspection we can’t see a problem. So we write it off until we have a break or get it home to figure out whats going on with it. At this point I just give him my setup to use. A bit of time passes and everything seems to be going ok, other than no fish, when all of a sudden. Lonny has a strike, when he sets the hook he accidentally his the thumb release on my reel. Yep you guessed it folks MAJOR and I do mean MAJOR free spool, which results in the worst birds nest I have ever encountered.
Which leads me to why I am writing this update this morning and not last night. I was trying to contend with this…
On the surface it doesn’t look thaaaaaat bad, but trust me when I tell you folks that sucker was DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. I spent 4 hours, yes folks you read that right 4 hours last night trying to unmuck that mess. I had the reel completely broke down, spool off and it still took that long. Whats worse is I wasn’t able to save it all. I lost close to 50 yds of braid to that mess.
Since I had the reel broken down anyway, I gave her a major cleaning and inspecting. As I was doing my close inspection I noticed that my thumb bar release has a big ole crack in it. I don’t think it had anything to do with what happened to Lonny, but that crack would explain why the reel had been acting funny for the last 2 days. Not sure if it got hit, or if it is just a fatigue crack, things like that occur when the reel is over 7 years old. At least I know where to get a replacement for it =).
Ok that’s it for this update, I will leave you with a couple close ups of the fishes we caught today, I know how you guys and gals love your fish porn…
Until next time, “F.O.B”
Evening folks!
Another day on the water, so in that respect it was a good day. The tides were pretty kind to us at the beginning of the day, but they were completely crap after about 10:30.
On a lighter note, Brad got a new nickname today, and one that may just stick… Barnacle Brad. He was on a roll today pulling barnacles out of the pass. The most I have ever seen pulled up in one day.
Brad also lost a monster today, it was fighting him so hard it was incredible. Half way up though “plink” and off it went back down to its hidey hole, quite a bit smarter.
Mackie and I both struck out again today for keepers. Little ones seemed to like messing with us. I had 2 that were just shy of legal and 1 that was just a baby.
Lonny and Mikey both hooked into keepers again today, although they were much smaller than the ones from yesterday. One was in at 27 and one at 28. Here are a couple of pics for your enjoyment. One is of Lonny and a couple are of Mike tormenting the dogs with his fish…
Ok short and sweet, must have food and rest, will write a couple more in depth posts when time and body allows =D
Have a great night ya’ll!
Until next time, “F.O.B”
Fishin with Winkstr 