we find ourselves hemmed in by the harsh edges of the timeclock, punching in, punching out.... caught in the mundane, overworked, under-appreciated mores of modern society. Our humdrum lives slip by in weeks, months and years, the highlights punctuated by only tragedy, roadrage, or those brief flickers of happiness: a raise, a bonus, or... VACATION TIME!
Having cooked up a scheme with my best friend's parents and husband over the past few months to surprise her at her cousin's wedding in Seattle, (of all places, as neither of us lives there!) we e-mailed surreptitiously back and forth, plane tickets were booked, transportation and lodging arranged, and fishing charters scheduled.
I was so excited to come surprise her that I could scarcely sleep, both because of the (sadly!) years that had passed between us getting together and because of the excitement of finally getting to meet her twins! So few people understand my humor when I quipped upon finding the genders of the babies to be a boy and a girl that I would be an Aunt AND an Uncle... *sigh*
I arrived and spent the first two days doing awesome stuff like sight-seeing, wandering Pike Place Market, me eating a hamburger in a famous seafood waterfront restaurant, and taking a bazillion pictures like the tourons we are. :) We took a harbor tour and rode the Giant Ferris Wheel (awesome 175 foot high view), we shopped for gifts and ate ice cream, we got a little lost in the Seattle maze and heavy traffic, and we talked A LOT. Seattle favored us with very little of its trademark rain, a fact for which I gave heavy and profuse thanks. The first few days were fun and touristy.
However the final day would hold an entirely new experience for me. But first, a disclaimer:
I'm usually a fairly even-tempered, perhaps even "sunny" person. Sure, I get heated once and a while, but they pass quickly and my Pollyanna personality pops back out, Now, with that disclaimer, there are a few things that I have EXTREMELY strong opinions about. Llamas, Kristen Stewart, spicy food... and fish.
Fish. Ah those critters with fins and scales, hiding in the depths of watery unknowns and taunting fisher-folk of the eons. The hypnotic pull of the water, be it ocean, lake or river, summoning folk with rod and reel, bait bucket or flies, and just about everyone has the tale of "the one that got away." I have four.
Embarking out to the marina in the VERY early morning hours, battling Seattle's omnipresent traffic (seriously? 5 am??? Where are all you people going so early??? Surely you can't ALL be going fishing???) and the construction, cussing out the GPS unit trying to re-route us back to the same closed road, we headed off for adventure, and eventually found our way to the marina, met our awesome fishing guide who did not look in the least put-out that he had a 3-person trip (instead of 6 - though how happy WE WERE that we didn't have 3 strangers along as well!!!) and never once treated us women like we were stupid... though more on that later....
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| Sunrise over Shilshole Bay. Photo copyright Chuck Trapani |
We headed down to our boat and were greeted with a spectacular sunrise as we headed just past the breakwater to the marina to set up. The downriggers were set to about 50 foot depth with glow-in-the-dark squid and big silver flashers on them, plus one high line set with a small bait fish to hopefully catch a Coho salmon or four. (Boy, how's that for learning some jargon fast... I almost sound like I know what I'm doing! WHICH I DON'T! I was probably 9 or perhaps 10 tops the last time I held a fishing pole on purpose! And taking one fly-fishing lesson on the lawn of the ranch I used to work at does not count. Though the guide told me I was a natural at casting..... didn't catch any lawnfish though, so I must not have been THAT good! HA!)
We set to trolling (see, more jargon. Not the Internet kind...) and I showed a hidden talent at spotting fish on the line at the first bite. I think here I can thank two iced mochas on the way to the marina (also the cause of testing the on-board potty later in the morning.....) for the slight jumpiness that contributed to me jerking to look at the line if it so much as twitched, and the heightened senses from living for the past year and a half in a Shelob-infested basement. If something moves, I look at it! (My motto: smack it first, ask what it was later...) The guide who has been doing this A LOT longer than I have and I would see the lines at the same time, and my friend and her husband reeled a few in that morning. Mostly Pink Salmon, though there were a couple of Coho as well, (which I later learned unprocessed were currently going for $55/fish!!!)
The fish were leaping all around us, the putt-putt of the outboard motor and the rocking of the water gently lulling me to sleep. The sun was rising and the rain had moved on, the crying of the gulls and the sun illuminating the Olympic Mountain Range were glorious. I was perfectly content to hang out on my bench and snuggle into my hoodie, but eventually my wallflower act snagged our guide's attention.
He had caught on to me, and huddling in the cabin out of the wind and short smattering of rain that we went through wasn't going to work. So the next bite was mine.... I grabbed the rod after he handed it to me, started reeling (holy mackerel... er... salmon! It was FIGHTING ME!) and got it about 5 feet or so up to the surface, when BAM! Slack line.
I wasn't overly discouraged the first go-round. After all, I'm beyond green (thankfully not from the boat, my motion sickness meds were working!) and the fishing thing isn't really my bag of (fish and) chips. So the second one, I gritted my teeth, tucked the butt of that pole harder under my arm and reeled for all I was worth, when BAM! Free fish.
By the third go, I was frustrated. I grabbed that pole, reeled slow and steady, kept the tip up, and pulled that fish in and just barely to the net.... the guide was reaching, and BAM!
Okay, now I was pissed. The fourth fish bucked and pulled, see-sawed and jigged, and I wrastled it and fought, got it to the surface. I could SEE it! The flasher glinting, the fish did a characteristic spin... and BAM! it too was gone.
By now my shoulder was blazing from fighting these guys up from 50-some feet down. My adrenalin was starting to jack up, and I was furious. I WAS GETTING A DAMN FISH INTO THE DAMN BOAT!
We hit a lull. My friend and I started discussing horses, the weather, the trip, the family... and I saw a line jerk. I got to the pole before the guide even did, grabbed it up out of the boat-side holder and reeled that bugger in. This one was NOT getting away! I pulled that tip high as instructed, and just reeled it slow and steady with no jerks.... and lickety-split that baby was IN THE NET!
This huge silver monstrosity flipped and flopped on the bottom of the boat, and our guide got his bat to give it a hefty dose of "aluminum shampoo" and though I'd been a bit squeamish the first fish he gave a knock to, by this time I was ready to whack it myself! I VERY happily shoved my finger up through those gills for my obligatory picture, and the next one was going to be mine as well.
Crazy enough, I did get the next! Hooked through a fin, I fought it all the way to the surface and into the net without losing it, and though bloody, got a pic with that one... fish slime, spattering of blood, water and fish scales and all!
We were nearly at our limit, and now I'd caught two Pink Salmon. But the Coho was what I wanted next. (King Salmon season had ended the week before, and while we did catch one, it was just a little feller and he went back. Our guide said "See you in 3 or 4 years!") So while we were talking, the high line did a little jig and that baby was MINE!!!!!!!!! I hadn't had a fight like that one yet... not in the four (FOUR!!!) that got away, nor the two Pinks. My arm was shaking. I had that rod stuck up under my arm and against my ribs. My heart was hammering from excitement, and the amount of work it took to pull that puppy up to the boat. I was fighting that fish with all I had. I braced my feet against the boat and pulled and that fish fought me with everything it had. I suddenly could not even imagine a big sport fish that these folks wrestle for sometimes hours to get into the boat, as here I was fighting a salmon much smaller, but using all its tricks to try to escape me.
I hauled and hauled that fish in, and in one horrifying moment, that line went smooth as glass, and for a split-second I forgot to keep reeling.... I was hollered at and my arms started remembering their job, pulled a big fat Coho to the surface and the picture of this fish it reaches from my shoulder down past my waist! (I am loathe to put pictures of myself on my blog, but this once I think it's okay to show a "bragging shot" or two.)
A few more fish and we'd caught our limit: 4 Coho and 8 Pink Salmon. Our catch laid out before us, I had indeed caught the biggest fish of the day and I was happy! I had asked a million questions, as I was completely unfamiliar with how to tell the species apart (Pink Salmon have small, easily-loosened scales, which was the easiest way for me to tell them apart) or the ways to identify a male from female (short of the roe we found inside several females of our day's catch) and when the distinctive hook nose, bright color and humps appeared on the spawning males, (ours were much younger males, probably four years old or so)
how to tell a wild from hatchery fish (they lop off the rearmost fin, called the adipose fin, on the hatchery fish) all about their lifespan, the fishing seasons, how big halibut got (40-60 pounds? HOLY SMOKES!) and about seeing whales, dolphins, about sea lice (ICK! Those are actually grosser than the dang fish!!!)
Who knew I would have such fun fishing? Who knew I'd end up snagging the biggest salmon of the day! And thankfully for everyone, I have no desire to eat any of them. All told, we had 30 combined pounds of processed salmon fillets for them to take back with them, and I had pictures and memories... and maybe just a few fish scales still stuck to my jeans.
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| Kevin Mallick's beautiful photo "Olympic Mountains through Shilshole Bay Marina" |
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