Winning a Bet with Pink Salmon

Last weekend was full of surprises. I’ve found that formal instruction in fishing is extremely rare, so when I found out about a Salmon School weekend from Anglers Unlimited, I jumped at the chance. The classroom part was held at the Secret Cove restaurant in Anacortes last Friday afternoon. They covered everything from rules and regs, fish identification and lifecycle, tackle, use of downriggers, fishing knots, trip planning, and the latest on sonar-based electronics. The restaurant has a great view of the water, and in the middle of class someone shouted out that two orcas were swimming right by! We took a little break just to watch them. I learned a lot that day, including several things that I realized I had been doing all wrong. I came away with a newfound confidence.

The on-water instruction was supposed to happen on Saturday. It was essentially a fishing charter that was geared specifically towards teaching people how to fish. We got to do our own planning for the trip, and even chose our own destination as a group based on weather, currents, and which fisheries were open at that time. However, in the morning I got a text telling me that my trip would need to be rescheduled due to mechanical issues with the boat. Suddenly, I had some free time to visit my girlfriend Viktoria in Redmond.

I hatched an idea to take her fishing for pink salmon on Sunday morning, even though she had to work in the evening. She asked why I wanted her to get a fishing license. I said that if she got a license we could use two rods instead of one, and catch four salmon instead of two. She scoffed at me for thinking I could catch four salmon. “Watch me!”, I said. The game was on. We placed bets on my success, she got her license, and we went fishing.

We launched in Everett a little before 9:00 and headed for the Mukilteo Lighthouse. It was a bit smokey, but it was an otherwise calm and sunny day. Just south of the lighthouse, I shut off the engine and started setting up all the gear as the current drifted us south. Trolling for salmon is rather technical. It took me about ten minutes just to get my kicker motor running without dying. Then I set up my downriggers, tackle and fish finder. Finally, I clipped each fishing line to a downrigger weight and dropped them down to 40 and 60 feet. There were fish jumping out of the water everywhere. The Puget Sound pink salmon run this year is massive – they estimate about four million fish!

Viktoria did a great job of monitoring the rods, and within minutes she announced that she thought we had a fish. I reeled the first one in, but she struggled with the net so we changed places and I lifted the first one aboard. I let her reel in all the rest of the fish that day. I reset the downrigger, and soon the other rod started jerking with a bite. Before long, we had four pinks in the boat and I got to claim victory. Looking at the clock, it was only 10:15. We had only been actually fishing for maybe 45 minutes.

We got home early, but pretty much spent the rest of the day cleaning fish. Each one had over two pounds of usable meat, so that’s a lot of salmon in the freezer. She commented that the fish were practically jumping into the boat. However, they weren’t doing that for me the previous week. They only jump into the boat if everything is perfect: speed, depth, visual presentation of the lure, etc. It looked easy, but actually takes skill. I felt like I had finally graduated from fisherman to catcherman.