J
JeannaJigs
After this last weekend I was exhausted and thankful to have time off until tomorrow. I had a couple injuries, but managed to complete the 60 mile walk (I'll post a thread about that too). I convinced Andy a couple weeks ago he really needed to call in sick so he could go fishing on my days off (I have weekdays off, he has weekends off...it doesn't work) so yesterday morning, Andy was really sick. I took him to Florence because Eugene was completely out of Imodium and it was an emergency. Got that under control and decided the best thing to do was go fishing, I had brined herring the night before "just in case", the cooler had ice, and the boat and jeep were gassed up and ready to go. Funny how it all worked out so splendidly? I have no idea what time we launched, but it was still pretty dark out. We rigged up and dropped our gear for the first pass. This is a hole most boats for some reason don't really work hard, but I've pulled fish out of in the past. I'd say my bait was down there about 10 minutes? 20 max. I grabbed a cookie for breakfast that an old lady gave me during my walk that i carried for like 55 miles, she said it was a "faith cookie" lol. That if you ate it and said a little prayer, everything would be okay. (Not even kidding you). I didn't eat it 'cause I shoved it into the bottom of my camelbak and it wasn't seen for another 3 days until I empty my camelbak out. So I ate it, and said to myself...I want a damn fish. 30 seconds after i put away the wrapper, my rod doubles and just completely burries itself. FISH ON. This thing fought like a beast. I knew it was a chinook, it wasn't coming up, and I knew it had to have some size to it, because the headshakes were unreal. I'm not sure how long the battle lasted but it felt like eternity. It kept making runs. I kept scanning the horizons fearing for seals. My knees shaking the whole time. Finally got it close to the boat and saw it roll near the surface...HOG! Then it took off a good 30 yards again. Dammit! Some goons in a boat near us kept telling me to let it run, and telling me when to reel hard. REALLY?! Just because I have boobs, doesn't mean I can't fight a fish without your input. Jeeze. That crap annoys me. I have caught a fish here and there ya know? Anywaysssss...he makes a few more runs before he gets wore out enough for me to even get him into net range. Andy tried scooping him up and realized how big this thing was, and how little the net suddenly seemed. He didn't want to go in the net. Somehow (maybe it was the faith cookie's doing) we got it in the boat. HOLY HOG. Andy immediately says "35 pounder". It barely fit in the cooler, and had to be put in at an angle as it was too girthy. After a few more hours we went to cushman and hung it on the scale, it was wavering between 32-33. I've never seen so much sea lice on a fish, ever, it took me forever to get it all off when I was filleting it out last night. Super fresh, bright red meat. Mmmmmm. No other fish the rest of the day, only thing I caught later was a sunburn when I fell asleep in the boat for I don't even know how long. Didn't see anything else going on either. Kinda dead. We did try to fish the jetties during incoming, but got harassed by the coast guard (who put on a rough bar advisory JUST BECAUSE they saw us heading that way, it wasn't on when we went back to florence, and the jetties were calm as a pond). Tons of crab pots, and it looked like the crabbing was pretty good though. All in all, I finally got my fix, I can handle not being able to go out for the rest of tidewater now. Or, well, I say that now. Give it a week.
The massacre, it decided to start squirting blood everywhere while I was holding it up for a picture, that didn't even really hardly come out because of the darkness.
The massacre, it decided to start squirting blood everywhere while I was holding it up for a picture, that didn't even really hardly come out because of the darkness.
I'm totally thinking the cookie played a major role lol
