Our First Spring Salmon

May 8th (Friday)

We had a relaxing day at home doing some projects on the boat and just enjoying the sun.  It remained fairly windy all day, but in the evening it calmed right off.  After our day of rest we were excited to go out and try some salmon fishing, so we headed out at around 17:00.  
We planed our way out over glassy calm water to the area of Barba Point where we stopped, set up our salmon fishing gear, and started trolling.  It was a spectacular evening, so glassy calm and warm.  We puttered along looking around for wildlife.  We saw a mink scampering along the low tide shoreline and two porpoises coming up to breathe.  In the distance we spotted something that must have been dolphins, but they looked like porpoising tuna.  They were rocketing along and porpoising up out of the water.  It was very cool to see, but unfortunately we were way too far away to go and check them out or to see them very clearly.  
As we puttered along with our lines out, all of a sudden Jason got one.  Instead of coming up to the surface to fight, and jumping out of the water like our Coho salmon tended to do, this one remained deep and did not come up until Jason had it at the boat.  It still fought a lot, shooting off this way and that in all directions, but it remained under the water and as deep as it could go.  As it rocketed this way and that around the boat it took a couple of attempts to net it, but we got it; our first salmon of the year.  
The salmon that are around right now are Chinook Salmon.  They have a lot of different names, some people call them Springs, Tyee, or King salmon, but they are all different names for the same fish.  Generally they are bigger than Coho and ours was 29 inches, pretty much exactly the same size as most of our Coho were that we caught last year.
Before heading home I caught a little one, about 12 inches, and of course we let it go.  
Back at home we enjoyed feeding Joey as we cleaned the fish, she has become like our puppy dog.  She meets us at the boat and will swim under water looking up at us, following us along the dock.  When I was cleaning out the tender she followed me and hung out around the boat watching what I was doing.
Jason and I had a delicious, although very late, dinner of California rolls with fresh crab caught using the Halibut carcass, and fresh fried salmon.  Yummy!! 




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