Over the past two weeks, I’ve had work obligations that
required tuexedo’s and suits…YUK!!!! So
since I have a bunch of leave time accumulated, I had to go fishing! Left Anchorage at 4:30 am to be on the water
by 9am in Homer. I wonder what the day
holds?!?!
Water looks relatively calm, a few boats fishing the area,
birds working the water so things look good!
I start by trolling a red label herring behind a flasher using a
downrigger. That resulted in a dozen
pollock and one tray of herring GONE in less than an hour! I am a HUGE bait guy. But I also know from experience that there
are select cases where the artificials can out produce bait (think Big Lake ice
fishing).
So I decide to try some hoochies I have had forever. These weren’t your typical hoochies, but ones
with narrower bodies. I was trying to
imitate the sand lances. Pedaling faster
than normal, it did minimize the pollock catch a bit. Just shy of the green can I get my first
whack! Wow, these things do work! Reel it up and it’s tiny maybe 5 pounder at
best. Well I have a proxy and I am never
going to catch four so into the yak it goes.
Somehow while fighting the fish the line strikes my
downrigger cable (100lbs spectra) and the downrigger ball breaks off! Huh? You’d
think 30lbs mono would cut off first but it didn’t. Well THAT’S a BUMMER. Now what?
So I tie on a deep six diver and switch over to my rod that I have
loaded up with braid and a short topshot of fluorocarbon. I caught the downrigger king 40ft down in 120
ft of water so the diver should work.
The other bummer of the day was I knocked one of my rods overboard. ARGH.
Ugly stick lite and an old abu Garcia 6000. Should have had it leashed but I didn’t. Live and learn. Everyone does it once…unfortunately this is
twice for me….
So over the next 5 hours I manage to go 7 for 10 on
Kings. Not a single fish weighed more
than 10 pounds. Two were jacks, but the
other 5 were adult kings but tiny. I’d
say if the big fish weighed 8 pounds, I’d be stretching it. I did cut them open and the meat quality was
excellent!!! I have found the tiny jacks (the 12 inchers) are very dry and NOT
a “little salmon” at all on the table.
One of the four looked to be a marbled white/red king.
So epic day of King fishing?? Let’s see….Lost a rod and reel, Lost a
downrigger ball, skipped work, went 7 for 10 on small kings….hmmm…HECK YA! EPIC!!!!!!
I had a blast!!!
Here’s the video from the day.
