2019 Ocean Salmon Season – Week 3

WOW! I have mixed feelings about the fishing trip today. We took our old neighbors from Sherwood, Mark and his son Alex, out for a second day hoping to repeat what we experienced yesterday. The drive out to Ilwaco was typical. Nothing to report. Got to the boat and prepped the crab traps. Today, we were going to make the effort to set a line. Launched by 8am and made our way around to the bait dock. Loaded a couple pounds into the live well and started with a pound on ice. Out to the big blue we go. The weather synopsis was indicating even less wind than yesterday. The wind waves and swells were supposed to be about the same. Crossing the bar was a non event. No waves or swells and almost full speed ahead. Once we got outside, the ocean was as flat as I have seen in a while. We raced 40mph to the crab grounds north of the jetty. Set our line and as long as we were stopped, decided to throw out the lines. Within minutes, we got our first bite. It was short lived. After a couple head shakes almost to the boat, it was gone. We trolled for a few more minutes before we decided to head further north. Again at 40mph, we reach our spot in just a few minutes. Weeks prior, this is where we were getting nothing but Chinooks. Hoping for the same, we start our troll. We tried several depths, all directions and a few different spots without so much as a nibble. Just a little disappointing. Listening to the radio, it sounded like most of the fleet was back out at the canyon in 300-500 FOW. That was a bit farther out than I really wanted to go, but we decided to make the treck. With the ocean as flat as it was and flying at 40mph again, it did not take long till we got out to 300 FOW. I c ould start to see the fleet on the horizon, but really did not want to go out any further. We dropped our lines and started out troll to the east. within minutes, we got our first bite. I am thinking I made the right decision. This one makes it to the net and we now have our first fish in the boat. A few minutes later and we now have another fish on. This one turns out to be native and had to be let go. This continues consistently, but we managed to lose several and the ones we did get to the net were all native. It was finally time to call it a day and go pull the crab pots. I was a bit disappointed to only have one in the boat, but it was not due to lack of fish on. With the ocean still flat as a small lake, we fly to the crab traps and begin our pulls. If success is gauged by the number of crabs in the traps, then it was an awesome day crabbing. Unfortunately, after the females and smalls were tossed back, we only ended up with two keepers. It was an awesome day with plenty of action, just not much to take home today. Cannot wait till next week.