Art and I went out fishing today, accompanied by Joe and his friend Jim. It was a very long day, but quite mediocre in terms of results.
We launched a little before 7 AM.
We trolled from Tranquil point to Port Estrella, and tried for some halibut there. We moved northwestward to the center of Bucareli Bay, to a spot over a shallower underwater plateau there, and tried for halibut again. Jim caught the bottom and there was lots of spinning the boat around and yelling while we tried to get him loose – in the end, we broke the line and left his hook and weight at the bottom.
Then we crossed increasingly rough and windswept waters to the southwest corner of San Igancio Island, where we again tried for halibut, drifting northward with the wind, motoring south again, and drifting northward again.
That having proved fairly fruitless, we trolled through the passage on the west side of San Ignacio to that island’s north end. Nothing at all bit our hooks. We proceeded southeastward from there to Diamond Point (the southwest corner of San Juan Island), where Jim had had much luck with halibut a few days earlier. But nothing – though Joe hooked what he and I both believed was a “big one” that seemed to get away.
Then we gave up and went home.
I didn’t keep a very good mental record of where we caught our fishes, but in total Art got one “pink” salmon. I got one silver (coho) – which I caught, much to my own surprise, using a halibut hook. Joe got one smallish halibut and one healthy-sized ling-cod. Jim caught a tiny black bass that didn’t seem much larger than the bait it had swallowed. Art and I sent all the caught fish home with Joe and Jim.
After getting back to the house at just before 5 PM, Joe had his cooler with his small haul of fish, with the tail of one fish sticking out.
Year-to-date totals:
- Coho: 15
- Kings: 0
- Halibut: 1
- Other: 3
- Too-small fish sent home to mama: 22
- Downrigger weights left on the bottom of the sea: 1
