Every year Ken gets the opportunity to go to Canada and do some fishing with his friend Jim and brother Greg. Some people want to know what he does out on the water for 12 hours... The following is an email he wrote explaining his day and is a good sneak peek for his account of his last trip to Canada!
Once we get to our fishing destination which on several days is a wild adventure in itself - We will have 4 lines in the water with 3 of them attached to 2 downriggers, 1 line on the left and 2 lines on the right side of the boat. Each line gets attached by a clip to the downrigger cable and at the end of the cable is a 12 pound weight. The weight is raised and lowered up and down to depths of 25 to 80 feet deep by the power from the batteries on the boat. The 4th line is a long trailer line out the back of the boat and is only about 10-15 feet below the surface depending on the size of weight we attach but trails almost 100 yards behind the boat.
Getting all this in the water and running smoothly is really tricky. Each pole is rigged with a big 3x12" flasher, chrome and green color seems to work well, then a 36" leader of 30 lb test mono and either a spoon, plug, squid, or herring rig attached at the end which holds the hooks. On the double downrigger side we run the lines about 22' apart and are attached by clips to the cable and trailing maybe 30' behind the boat. So now we have all sorts of stuff trailing behind the boat at different levels in the water column and various lures and flashers to attract the fish to bite. When the fish bites the lure the line breaks free from the clip which is attached to the downrigger cable and you are fighting the fish on only the fishing pole and line.
Easy enough right! Wrong!!! Now throw in all the other factors of driving the boat, watching the GPS / Sonar unit, rolling ocean waves, trying to keep your balance so you don't fall over board, fog so thick you can't see anything at times, maybe rain, trying to stay dry and warm, and avoiding getting sea sick, and when it happens it is no fun puking your guts out at sea! Believe me it happened to me this year!
So now everything is set, sit back have a drink and a snack, maybe a slice of cheese, or salami, maybe a cookie or trail mix. If you can see some distance without being fogged in there is always lot's of seabirds to watch and sometimes really close to the boat, everyday several seals come up to check you out and sometimes porpoises, and this year we were blessed with spotting whales everyday! At least 100 sightings in the 7 days we were fishing. No time to read, for you just bounce too much, the only reading is the fishing regulations, your book or magazine would get wet for sure, too much humidity. Just when you get settled in thinking about catching a quick cat-knap someone yells out "FISH ON"!
The person nearest the rod grabs the rod from the rod holder, quickly reels in the slack line, sets the hook and hangs on. If it is a big fish you know right away and they yell out "BIG FISH", the fish will be ripping out line really fast and usually heading down into deep water. While this is happening the other 2 fisherman on the boat are reeling in all the other lines and raising the downrigger cables as fast as they can, getting it all out of the way while still driving the boat and keeping it in position to fight the fish. All the gear has to come into the boat or the fish will wrap itself up in the lines and get away.
When the gear is all in the boat, someone grabs the net and the other guy drives the boat keeping the fish on the up-wind side. The guy holding the rod is now battling the fish and the adrenaline rush is really intense. This is truly a team effort and each person plays an important part in netting a fish. The 38-pounder we caught took 30-40 minutes to net. I had it to the surface 3 times before my hands cramped up and I let Jim take over the rod. I went to driving the boat; Jim took over the rod and had the fish to the surface 4 more times before Greg was finally able to net the fish. That fish was truly a Trophy Class fish and the biggest caught at the marina that day! It took so long to net the fish because we caught it on 15 lb test line and we had to have the drag set really light on the reel so the line wouldn't break.
Well when you land a fish, you give each other a slap on the back or big hi-five, get the salmon in the live well and start the process all over again of getting the lines back in the water. And this routine takes place every time you get a bite, if you miss the fish then the downrigger ball the line was attached to needs to be raised, check the hooks, attach the line to the clip and send it back down again. This happens many times every day, on every bite, often times seaweed will knock the line off the clip and you have to raise and reset, a seal knock it off once. We do this for 10-12 hours a day just for fun, crazy I know, but it is all worth it when you hook into a really big King Salmon.
0 comments:
Post a Comment