Catch and Release Eelgrass Fishing?

Because of an all-consuming and very technical work project I had to wrap up by Friday, this last week felt like finals week in engineering school. I worked on Labor Day and until 11 p.m. on several nights this week (which is pretty unusual). I was really looking forward to fishing on Saturday, but I was almost too exhausted to enjoy it. We wound up having a nice day though, so I’m really glad I persisted. Dave and I had both smoked the previous week’s catch last weekend and were pleased by the results. This motivated us to catch more.

After putting my project to bed, I left a little early on Friday and went to Seattle to pick up my boat from the shop. In addition to some scheduled maintenance, they installed some really beefy downrigger mounting brackets with swivel mounts on top, along with power in the back of the boat to handle electric downriggers. The Whaler wasn’t really designed for Northwest-style fishing, and the stainless steel rails are not strong enough to handle the force of 15-pound cannonballs suspended three feet out from the boat and 100 feet underwater. My new brackets make the rails rock solid; now I can attach whatever I want without fear. I declined the actual electric downriggers, opting to hunt for used ones instead. For now my little toy manual downriggers are still attached. They are still catching fish for me, although with much less efficiency.

Today was a great day to be on the water. The sun was warm, the seas were calm even in the afternoon, fish were jumping all over the place, and we saw lots of wildlife. Harbor seals were everywhere we went. We saw sea lions huddled on the Possession Point buoy, and even got a good look at a nearby school of harbor porpoises. Although much of the massive biannual pink salmon migration has headed upriver by now, there are still plenty left in saltwater. We could have done well just fishing for those, but today we were hunting for the more challenging coho salmon. We weren’t the only ones, since today was the annual Edmonds Coho Derby. There were a ton of boats on the water.

Every time I learn a new fishery there’s a new learning curve. There’s new techniques to study and new gear to buy. This year I’ve tried my hand at lingcod, Baker Lake sockeye, pink salmon, and now coho. For coho I bought relatively little, since last year I bought a ton of old used tackle off of a friend’s dad. At the time I didn’t know how to use it, but now I do. I packed a kit with probably eight different colored flashers, and countless hoochies and spoons. We decided to fish Possession Point, where there is a sharp underwater ledge with a very steep drop-off on the east side. Since the tide was coming in from the west, we figured it was a good place for coho to hang around.

Today was a grind; we had to really work for our fish. We got off to a slow start. We started the kicker, set up our tackle, and dropped our downriggers. Since coho like a very fast 3 mph troll, we moved very quickly over our fishing grounds and had to keep resetting and moving the boat. As we went along, we experimented with different gear and improved our technique. After the tangle we got into last time, we agreed that when one guy starts reeling in a fish the other guy will immediately crank up his downrigger ball for him before grabbing the net.

Trolling might sound boring, but actually there’s a lot of things you have to keep track of all at once. My boat has a sturdy phone mount and built-in USB charger. These allow me to run the navigation app on my phone while the fish finder is up on the boat’s screen. You’re constantly watching both to make sure you’re still in the fishing zone while not snagging the downrigger ball on the bottom, which is potentially dangerous. You’re also trying to avoid hitting other boats, and maneuvering to ride out all their wakes. Finally, you’re watching your rods to see if you’ve got a bite.

Dave and I each run our own tackle and our own rods. I take the port side and he takes the starboard. For some reason he was catching all the fish today. After a lot of trial and error, he got his first bite about two hours in. It was a pink. Later he got another small pink, which he decided to throw back in hopes of a bigger fish later. Finally, he got a medium-sized coho, followed by another good-sized pink. I caught a very small fish which looked a lot like a young salmon, but couldn’t have possibly been a returning one. I released him to fight another day. Finally, my rod started jerking and I got excited. I reeled it in only to find it was a great glob of eelgrass! When Dave reeled in one of his own, we decided it was time to go home. By the time we got back to Everett we had been on the water for six full hours. Three fish against our limit of four wasn’t bad, and one was a coho. I took home one of the pinks (I had released the eelgrass). The chef at my work cafeteria had offered to teach me how to clean and filet a salmon quickly, so I just vacuum sealed it and froze it whole for now.

It’s not my goal to catch every fish in the sea, although a few would be nice. What I love about fishing is the unique opportunity it gives me to observe nature. I want to be able to read the seas. I want to understand how fish respond to the changing tides and currents. I want to be able to identify all the common species of fish, birds, and marine mammals. I want to be able to tell where the fish are by watching how birds and other wildlife react to them. Most of all, I just want to be on the water.