Trying for More Salmon

June 8th (Monday)

Early in the morning we headed out fishing.  We had decided that if we could catch another salmon today, then we would can a bunch, and if not, then we would simply freeze the leftovers from yesterday’s fish.  It was a beautiful glassy calm morning!
We ended up having the most action trolling for Chinook Salmon that we had had so far.  Unfortunately we did not manage to keep any of them.  The fish must have all been bigger than yesterday's 20-25 pounder because they broke three of our pre-tied hoochie hook set-ups.  
We learned a new lesson today; never trust the strength of pre-tied hook set-ups.  We were using the same hoochies that we purchased from Shearwater last year and that we used all season for our Coho fishing.  We never had any problems then, and even though Chinook are definitely bigger fish, we never thought that the line would be that weak.  Due to the line breaking, we ended up losing two hoochie hook set-ups and a third set of hooks.  We also lost two other fish because they were simply not well enough hooked and they got away fighting.  It was an active, but frustrating day.  
As we were trolling along about 50’ out from the rock wall of shore we saw a whale blow up ahead.  A few minutes later we were startled by the sound of a whale’s blow right beside us.  The whale surfaced right in between us and the shore, about 40 feet away from us and only 10 feet or so away from the shore.  We watched as it dove back down on another dive.  It was pretty neat that it chose to come up right beside us.
A little while later several dolphins greeted us.  They came over to us and swam around underneath us before coming up porpoising around us.  
We reeled in our lines and floated there watching them as they cruised along the shoreline.  The rest of the pod was spread out across the Dean Channel so we started our outboard and went out to float in the middle of the channel where we had the pleasure of watching several groups who were being very active.   


Some were doing jumps, flips, and spins, and we watched in awe.  It was so incredible to be able to watch dolphins being so acrobatic.  
On our way home we pulled up the crab trap that we had set yesterday with the salmon carcass.  We had 23 large crabs and it took both of us to be able to lift the trap into our tender without rubbing it on the pontoon.  
We kept several large males and had a delicious crab dinner with some fresh salmon left over from yesterday.  

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