Alas, my 2014 fishing voyage has drawn to a close. It has been a good three weeks, and it went by fast! We had a hard time getting into the fish at first, but over all we did well.
It was eventful. We hit some rough weather (9′ – 14′ seas), had to harbor in a bay for a day – that was actually kind of fun.
We saw sea otters, sea lions, lots of whales. We had a unique instance in which the fish seemed to dry up in an area and all the other trollers went away. Before we left, we decided to move offshore a bit and try a shallower hump where fish tend to congregate. We landed on a huge pile of cohos! We couldn’t keep up with the amount we were catching, and the cool thing was, we were the only boat in sight.
We had lots of good weather (after the first week). I jumped in the water and swam around at my old house, which was nostalgic. We caught mostly cohos, some ling cod, some halibut. They closed the king salmon fishery early, which was very upsetting, because we caught and threw back a LOT of kings. That would have been a pile of money. But I’m trying to be too bitter. We almost ran over a seiner’s net, had our gear “bumped” by a pile of humpback whales and miraculously emerged undamaged. I took lots of pictures. Enjoy!
Michael Rauwolf Photography 