Saltwater Fishing
by Roger Urbaniak
My intent was to fish my plug cut herring with stop and go movement through the recommended 60–80-foot depth recommended by our skipper.
When I stripped line off my reel and counted however, I had only reached a depth of 40 feet when my line went slack, normally indicating a salmon had grabbed my herring. Instinctively I stopped peeling line off the reel and slowly gathered up the slack. After a few seconds, the line tightened on its own and I began to reel without jerking my rod tip. Success! When the rod bent and line began peeling off my reel, I knew that I had hooked a salmon. This was to be just the start of my fun.
Every summer I enjoy a trip to Westport Washington, usually fishing there off a charter boat in the later part of July. Today I boarded the charter boat Slammer with 15 others in search of one Coho and one
Chinook salmon to fill my allowed limit. After roughly a two-hour ride to our fishing grounds for the day, we stopped at a location that had produced yesterday and noticed perhaps a dozen other boats in the general area. Our captain announced the fish were schooling at 60-80 feet and instructed us to fish that depth by keeping our herring moving up and down through it. Two anglers on my boat had already announced “fish on” before my line became slack, which added to my excitement.
I had chosen a pole position at the stern of the boat mostly because I was superstitious and the position had produced for me in the past. When the fish first began its run, it politely ran straight away from the boat without tangling other lines and it jumped twice. Once I saw the size of my fish, I knew that I would need to concentrate if I hoped to land it. My fish decided that it didn’t like the feel of my hook in its mouth and became downright angry about the whole situation. I had never encountered a fish that was able to use so many tricks in its effort to escape.
Once swimming away from the boat and jumping didn’t work, my salmon decided to swim parallel to the boat forcing me to dodge under angler lines as I followed it around the boat hoping not to get tangled. Two jumps in succession near the anglers I was passing drew Wow’s from them as they cleared a path for me to get around them. Once my salmon discovered that it couldn’t tangle lines on one side of the boat, it dived under the boat and tried to tangle lines on the other side as I huffed and puffed my way around the boat myself. More jumps on the starboard side of the boat drew more applause and cheers. I kept my drag reasonably tight, but did not seem to be able to get the fish close enough to the boat to net for nearly 25 minutes.
When the deck hand finally was able to get my angry salmon in a net, most of the people fishing gave me a cheer, but then quickly went back to fishing, hoping to catch one like mine themselves. All I was able to do was to slump against the railing. My fish had totally worn me out, but it was a pleasant tired.
At the end of the day, our boat had limited and my salmon was easily the largest on board. I had failed to purchase a derby ticket, and although I would not have won the annual prize, it is likely I would have won the $100 prize for largest of the day. Lesson learned. I was presented with a badge saying I caught the Bug Un and will likely be back next year.