Jan from Humboldt
Contributing Member
Salmon season even though it was severly shortened by the NMFS/PFMC has been nothing short of spectacular this year.
Lots of big fat hungry King salmon, some days the bites were intense and there were lots of fish to fight and other days you might have to do some scratching around to get your two fish limit.
I hit the water again on Friday and it was for me a little slower fishing, I picked up one nice fat fish in the first hour of fishing and then got off the fish. They'd zig and I'd zag for the next 3 hours, I kept getting bites and "Shakers" as we call them here but just couldn't get that last one to stick. (I'm trolling with a diver/flasher/apex lure rig btw)
Finally I heard of a good bite going on a few miles north on the VHF and decided to run up and check it out and was able to get there quickly as it was pretty flat. I dumped the gear in and within five minutes got super bendo.
I troll with an older 8.5 foot Lamaglas stick I made years ago for lobbing bait and small jigs as it has a softer action, I use an old Diawa Sealine 50 (Rebuilt with Smoothie drags and new bearings) and 65# power pro as I like the lower gearing on the reel and the over all toughness of it.
After a pretty good battle I was able to gaff a nice 21# King and fill the limit.
I weighed both fish on the didgital scale at home and one was 22.9 and the other was 21.8, all in all quite a day and quite a season.
It closes for two months on 7/4 so I may have to force myself to go out a couple more times here pretty quick, of course there's always Halibut, Tuna (If they show this year) Rockfish and those awful tasting Ling cod.
It's a rough life here and I'll manage somehow.
Lots of big fat hungry King salmon, some days the bites were intense and there were lots of fish to fight and other days you might have to do some scratching around to get your two fish limit.
I hit the water again on Friday and it was for me a little slower fishing, I picked up one nice fat fish in the first hour of fishing and then got off the fish. They'd zig and I'd zag for the next 3 hours, I kept getting bites and "Shakers" as we call them here but just couldn't get that last one to stick. (I'm trolling with a diver/flasher/apex lure rig btw)
Finally I heard of a good bite going on a few miles north on the VHF and decided to run up and check it out and was able to get there quickly as it was pretty flat. I dumped the gear in and within five minutes got super bendo.
I troll with an older 8.5 foot Lamaglas stick I made years ago for lobbing bait and small jigs as it has a softer action, I use an old Diawa Sealine 50 (Rebuilt with Smoothie drags and new bearings) and 65# power pro as I like the lower gearing on the reel and the over all toughness of it.
After a pretty good battle I was able to gaff a nice 21# King and fill the limit.
I weighed both fish on the didgital scale at home and one was 22.9 and the other was 21.8, all in all quite a day and quite a season.
It closes for two months on 7/4 so I may have to force myself to go out a couple more times here pretty quick, of course there's always Halibut, Tuna (If they show this year) Rockfish and those awful tasting Ling cod.
It's a rough life here and I'll manage somehow.
