First Pink Salmon Catch at Humpy Hollow

“It’s summer”, I tell myself. This is my rationale for not finishing that nearly-done window project, and for not removing that rather large dandelion in my front yard. A few short years ago, I really enjoyed working on my house, but now my boat has ruined me like Eve ruined Adam. The call of the sea is strong. Those of us who know the value of our short lives see summer in the Northwest as somewhat of an emergency. It causes us to flee our homes when the sun shines, taking only our most necessary possessions: our hiking boots, kayak paddles, or fishing poles, according to our preference. In that spirit, It’s been my goal to get on the water every single weekend this summer. I’ve done well keeping up so far, in my quest to hone my fishing skills.

It’s now the season for pink salmon, also called “humpies” because of how they look during their spawning phase. Pinks only run every other year, in odd-numbered years. They are known for being fairly easy to catch; good for relative novices like me. I didn’t want to miss out. Every time I learn a new fishery there’s a new learning curve, and new gear to buy. Earlier this week I went to John’s and stocked up on white flashers and pink hoochies for today’s outing, studied the regs, and boned up on how to tell various kinds of salmon apart. We would use a similar technique as we used at Baker Lake for sockeye: trolling on the kicker and running downriggers. Although I’ve had both pieces of gear for some time, neither has received much use until last week. Now that I’m graduating from sand dabs to salmon, it’s time to press them into service. A “kicker motor” is a low-power engine commonly used for slow-speed trolling in the Northwest, slower than what your main engine can typically idle. Downriggers hold your fishing gear at a precisely controlled depth using a large “cannonball”. Your fishing line is clipped to the downrigger, and when a fish bites it’s supposed to pull your line out of the clip. After that, you just reel it in.

My companion today was my neighbor Bryan. He’s a good guy. Being a teacher, he’s always home when it snows. He always shovels everybody’s sidewalks on the block, including mine. He’s seen me driving my Whaler down our street, and jumped at the chance to go with me. Our fishing grounds would be “Humpy Hollow”, basically the area just off Mukilteo between the lighthouse and the shipwreck. It’s a well-known spot where pinks school up before running up the Snohomish River. We arrived around 9:00, started the kicker, set up lines, and started trolling. We set the speed for about 1.7 mph. The first 15-20 minutes were pretty uneventful, so we decided to pull up our gear and check it. We were surprised to find a salmon on the line! It didn’t pull hard enough to free the line from the downrigger, so we never noticed it. It was a nice-sized 23-inch fish. Brian had reeled it in, but downrigger fishing is a team effort. It went into the bucket, and later the kill bag.

A little while later, we noticed that the pole had popped free from one of the downriggers. I took the rod this time. It wasn’t a docile pink salmon… This one fought like Chuck Norris at a bar brawl. It had to be a coho (which are legal to catch and taste great). I reeled it up to the surface and it really started flopping like crazy. Brian made three tries to get it netted, when suddenly the line went limp. The fish had escaped. “NOOOOOOOOOO” I cried. Two guys in a nearby boat watched the whole spectacle and felt my agony.

Somehow the outgoing tide has drifted us way out far from shore. My kicker wasn’t keeping up with the current, and we had already blown south of the shipwreck. Wanting to get back to the fishing grounds, I cranked the kicker up to make 3 to 4 mph. This somehow caused our lines to get all tangled. We wasted a bunch of time getting our gear all fixed, but by then we had drifted way out of the fishing grounds again. Not wanting to pull all our gear up again, I repeated my strategy of just leaving it all down and going fast on the kicker, with similar results. Our lines had hooked on to each other under the boat. This time the tangle was so bad we wound up just cutting our lines, making sure not to leave any gear or fishing line in the sea. It was time to go home.

The trip back was predictably blustery, as it usually is in the afternoon. Brian chose to sit up front where he could feel every wave, instead of at the helm like a sane person. He whooped like a child with every wave – he was having a blast. Back at the dock, a Fish and Wildlife biologist came and inspected our catch. Apparently we had correctly identified our fish and were legal. She commented that ours was a pretty nice-sized one.

At least we were coming home with one good fish this time, and we weren’t just bringing back melted ice in the kill bag. Brian insisted that I keep the fish, possibly taking pity on me for losing that coho. After cleaning the boat and putting it away, I filleted the salmon, vacuum packed it, and froze it to smoke later when I have time. Although the fillets looked a bit hacked up, I’m not as intimidated by gutting a fish as I was a few months ago when I had to do it for the first time. The hardest part was that the fish was so slippery I could hardly hold on to it while cutting.

With every trip I gain more experience. On this outing my main engine just topped 100 hours, and I’ve put 12 hours on the kicker in just two weeks. There’s still plenty more time for salmon fishing this summer.