When the ocean salmon season opened up a week ago, I was reading a number of reports about early limits of both chinook and coho. Due to weather and ocean conditions, we decided to wait. It was a hard week of anxiety for sure.
It was finally time. Had an early wake up call and hit the road by 5am to get to Ilwaco by 7am. We got to the Ilwaco ramp as planned to find a long line. Apparently with the extreme low tide, two boats broke skegs on one lane of the ramp, so many were reluctant to use it.
After about 30 minutes, we were finally on our way out to the Big Blue. It was low slack tide and the bar was relatively flat. We took a turn to the north with hopes of finding some chinook. Conditions were good for about 30 knots to the hunting grounds. Got our lines in the water and were trolling by 8am. We tried deep and shallow by the condos and beyond with no luck. We spent the better part of an hour before we decided to call it and change locations.
We were hearing spotty reports of catches down by CR. Again, the conditions were good for about a 30 knot transit and we were at the CR within minutes. The fleet seemed to be concentrated here and we did some a couple nets flying, but it was not hot by any means. We dropped our lines in the water and tried our luck. Again, we tried deep and shallow with a few drive byes here and there. A couple of native coho were let go before a couple hours passed.
The fleet had thinned out and we were virtually the only boat left in the area. It was like the light switch turned on. We were all getting bites and before you knew it, we had five in the box. The school dissipated after some time and bites were farther apart, but we had two more in the box. We only needed one more for a boat limit. The two hardest fish to catch sometimes is the first one and that damn last one. 🙂 We spent another hour or so trying to find that last biter, but had no luck. We had to call it a day with one short.
The ocean was still relatively calm and allowed for a quick trip in over a high slack tide bar. We got docked and started the wash down. With the boat now moored for the ocean season, no more waiting for fools at the ramp.
Overall, it was a great ocean opener for the Aquaholic and fingers are crossed for more to come.