New Member Introductions

[WaveDancer]

Since this is a new forum to us locals and I don't see one posted up yet, how about we sticky this as a new member introduction thread?

I'll start it here.

WaveDancer here.

Member on most local boards under the same user name.

Job, Tunaholic as a lot of locals are.

I think like most new member posts I have seen, you should post a favorite fishing story or memory so here's mine:

This happened to me back in 1996 on a charter boat out of Ucluelet. We were fishing for halibut out at South Bank and I had brought a new halibut rod and reel of my own for the first time. Everyone was catching sharks and there was a real mess of tangled lines on the side of the boat and the deckhands had their hands more than full. I was doing alright myself but the gentleman next to me was really struggling with a shark wrapped around everything but the kitchen sink so I stuffed my rod in a rod holder to help out.

Just as I started to get his mess situated, I saw a shark coming by with some black and white braided line wrapped around it's head. Knowing I was the only one on the boat using braided line, I ran straight to my pole in the rod holder to get there just as it goes flying out and "PLOP" into the water. My BRAND NEW rod and reel gone! It took me a split second to realize I better make sure anybody else that got snagged up with a shark and some braided line yell out before you do anything else. About three minutes later one of the fisherman on the other side of the boat yelled out that he had snagged a shark with some braid wrapped around it and I got right on it and low and behold I ended up getting my new rod and reek back. Whew, what a relief!!!

Ended up being one of the best fishing trips I ever had, limits of salmon, halibut , lingcod and a few rockfish to boot.

Well, there you have it, my fish story.

So, to you new forum members, post up and give us your story.

WD.

[Sleddddder]

Sleddddder here, Same name on the other usual boards.
Funny story:
Last year at Westport was fishing with Canyonman, Paul & Jim on Jim's Seahawk O/S. Got a quick limit Fri night & went back Sat for more action. We had a few in the box when I hooked into one about 10lb king. We kept trolling while I fought this fish & I couldn't get it in the last couple of feet to the net. After a couple of failed attempts to net it, Enough of this crap, Reel down, clamp down on the reel & walk backwards. Scott goes in with the net then everything goes slack. I'm thinking it came unbuttoned but hoping Scott got it in the bag. Split second later I see my diver & flasher rocketing in the back of the boat, I'm hoping Scott doesn't catch the hooks when they come in, Then I see this salmon come flying in over Scotts head & land in the middle of the boat flopping around. After the laughing subsided Scott told me when he went in with the net the fish jumped & I had so much pressure on it, it yanked the fish over his head & in the boat.

One in a Million story:
Couple of years ago fishing Kings off Pilot point one rod goes off & start fighting what feels like a nice fish. Hundred feet off the back of the boat a seal pops up with my line going straight at it's mouth. Dang! he's got my fish but I can't see anything in his mouth??? We play tug of war for a minute then he lets go. When I reel in I see my hootchie had hooked the eye of the flasher & hooks someone else had broken off in the seals mouth & I managed to pull the hooks out. What are the odds of hooking that 80' down??

[Bear]

I’m Bear in real life, and on here, and Slowleak on all the other boards.

Not really a fishing story but the statute of limitations should have kicked in by now so I can tell this one.

In the winter of 1976, I was visiting my hippie brother and the rest of his commune who were building a 72’ ferro-cement sailboat on the shores of Bellingham Bay. A friend of theirs had a few commercial crab pots set out right in front of their boat. They had some sort of arrangement with him, or so they said, where it was okay to pull the pots and remove the smaller keepers and females and leave the big ones in the pot.

In any case, I was hungry for fresh crab but the only watercraft available was a very heavy 14’ Birchcraft canoe and we couldn’t find any paddles so we used a couple of square nose shovels for propulsion; the shovels had pipes welded on them for handles. Imagine two grown men (my brother is about Robbo’s size) trying to coordinate an effort to pull a commercial pot in a 14’ canoe without tipping it over. Somehow we managed to pull a couple of pots and got a “few” limits and had crab scampering around the bottom of the canoe. We had to sit with our legs up over the gunwales to avoid the crabs. I was in the stern so this left the family jewels close enough to the crab claws to make me extremely uncomfortable and the crabs could get enough traction on the canoe stringers to climb up the sides.

So… while trying to keep my manhood intact and keep the crabs in the boat, all while balancing on the gunwales with a now very heavy shovel paddle, my 90 pound black lab decides she needs to swim out and join us. Somehow I managed to get her up across my legs but she wasn’t very cooperative and she didn’t like the crabs at all. Now, on top of everything else, I’m soaking wet; my brother is laughing his ass off because with the additional weight of the mutt, the stern is riding mighty low in the water and the crabs are congregating right below my crotch.

My dog now decides she really needs to stand up because there are a couple dozen crabs scratching around right below her; I can’t paddle and keep the dog still and keep the crabs in the boat and keep my balance. Did I mention we didn’t have life jackets? Anyway I decide the dog has got to go so I threw her over the side; in the process I damned near swamped the canoe. My brother, between laughing his ass off and trying to keep his balance, drops his shovel in the bay and for some reason the shovel didn’t float.

We are now down to one shovel, 100‘ from shore and the dog is trying to get back in the canoe; my brother is laughing so hard he’s about ready to fall overboard. I can only paddle on one side of the canoe because the dog’s on the other and I can’t get going fast enough to out run the dog. I can tell you, trying to do a j-stroke with a square nose shovel with one hand while fending off crabs with the other is not easy.

When we finally made it to shore, my brother jumped out and since I was on the very end of the stern I ended up doing a half-gainer into the bay. The good news is… the dog didn’t drown, I didn’t get a discount vasectomy, I didn’t kill my brother, we didn’t get arrested and we didn’t lose a single crab.

[Robbo]

Holy crap Bear...the wife and I are sitting here laffing our asses off

So many "rod overboard" stories I don't know where to start.

Lets see...there was the one at Secret Harbor in the San Juans back in about 1996. I had four guys on board and we were jigging the sand flat in the Harbor when one of the guys hooks up on a nice kinger. This king is one of those ones that doesn't do much...just tossing his head back and forth and coming in real quicklike. In less than a minute this 20 pound soon-to-be-smoking-hot nookie is at the side of the boat all nice and pretty. It was so shiny and pretty that the guy sets the rod down and runs into the cabin to get his camera. I couldn't believe my eyes

I could see the fish and it could see me and I swear I saw a little twinkle in it's eye before it blasted off like a fart in a wind tunnel, taking the rod with it. "Nooooooooooooo!" I dove across the deck but it was too late...the rod went twirling into the depths and out of sight.

Just then the guy walks out of the cabin with his camera and says, "Where did my fish go?" My only response was a half smile and "Wow...you're a dandy!"

Soooooo many more stories...but I need to meter them out a little

[Mingo]

Robbo- rumor has it you once fished with a guy who hooked and lost a steelhead.....and got so pissed he chucked his rod in the river.....and that sorry bastard got VERY
lucky when he later discovered the hook had snagged the anchor rope ......so he was able to pull it back in and resume fishing. Is that a true story? Mingo wants to know............... ..............

[Robbo]

Oh yeah...that was another funny moment at least for Kevin and I

This guy had lost two steelhead to barbless hooks over the course of the day and he was casting a spoon into the top of the Mixer hole on the Skagit when WHAMO...a nice chrome high teener buck hammers his spoon and goes ape dookie. The fish is flipping out...jumping all over the place...and all of a sudden KAPUUUUT out comes the hook. I still remember the spoon wizzing past us in the boat after the fish spat it out in mid air.

Well, the guy completely loses his marbles and goes into this Sparkey Anderson tirade...cursing and swearing and stomping his feet and carry-ing on about barbless hooks and how much he hates frickin-frackin steelhead and on and on and on...and at the end of it all he winds up and throws his rod into the Skagit like a golf club. No joking...he is PISSED OFF

There was a half dozen flyfisherman sharing some ambience over on the Fly Bar and they were all looking at my boat like we were a bunch of heathens...and we were

We continue drifting downstream and Kevin and I are biting our lips trying to keep from laughing when I hear this ticking noise on the bottom of the driftboat. Out of curiosity I look over the side and here is this guys rod hanging underneath the boat. When he wound up to throw the rod in the drink the spoon had swung around and caught on the anchor rope.

I quietly reached over the side and pulled the rod in. The guy was sitting with his arms crossed in the front seat...still really PISSED OFF...and after letting the water drain off the rod and reel I quietly set the rod in his lap and said, "Here's your rod...go ahead and cast again up by this big rock."

He's still P.O.'ed to high heaven, by I manage to convince him that he really, really, really needs to cast his spoon by the big rock down in the tail out. He reluctantly does and WHAMO ...that son of a gun hooks up again and this time it's a toad. We eventually landed that fish downstream a long ways and it taped out at around 22 to 23 pounds

Another day at the office

[Fivesrlimit]

Hey Robbo, I like the one with Buzzy and Joe on the Skagit, when Joe snags your rod with the steelhead still on it. I think you caught that fish didn't you?

[Salmonhawk]

Great stories guys, keep'em coming.

When I was playing ball I used to head up to the Juans right before training camp started for a little fishing and relaxation. We would always stay at Smugglers on the north end of Orcas Island. The drill was for me and my son Mason and business partner Paul to get up early every morning do some fishing till about noon and then go hang with the rest of the family.

One day we landed a 25lb king and decided to leave the carcass in a bucket on the boat to bait the crab pots the next morning. We were up at about 4:30, headed down to the boat and as we were climbing on I hear what sounded like a skirmish. I paused, looked around the boat and didn't see anything but I did notice that the carcass had been chewed on a little. We looked around the boat in every nook and cranny that I could think of and found nothing. I figured that whatever it was, it must have jumped overboard.

We got underway, baited the crab pots and then we were off to where we had caught fish the day before. By this time, the sun was coming up, the water was flat, it was a beautiful morning and we were full of anticipation. I was seated in the captains chair and Mason was seated in the seat on the other side while Paul was standing in between us and sipping some coffee. All of a sudden coffee goes flying, Paul starts dancing and dives into Mason's lap screaming what the @#$& is that!!!!

I quickly turned around to see what was going on and to my surprise there was on otter doing laps around the deck of my boat. Being a man of action a grabbed a dock pole and figured the only safe way for me to remove this critter was to beat it to bloody pulp and toss it overboard. Luckily for us and the critter it jumped on the gunwale and then overboard. After gathering our composure we doubled over with laughter. To this day Paul hasn't lived that story down, it's always a party favorite.

[Robbo]

LMAO...that story is even better when Paul is around

Somehow this thread got bogarted into a funny fishing story thread, but what the hell we might as well keep it going

Here ya go Fives

Buzzy, his dad Joe, and I shoved off from Howard Miller Steelhead Park in Rockport sometime in March about five plus years ago in a torrential monsoon in hopes of hammering some metal. It was raining like a two ###ted cow pissing on a flat rock and it didn't take long before all three of us were totally miserable. Being good steelheaders we persevered though and while we weren't hooking anything we kept diligently plugging every run...sooner or later we'd run into some fish...hopefully sooner.

We were cold, soaked to the bone, and so miserable that none of us were speaking to one another. In the Mix-master we once again deployed the plugs and began dreaming of a warm and sunny place. The Mixer is another one of the Skagit's huge runs and 5, 10, 15 minutes went by with nothing...the three of us were in la-la land.

Suddenly the center rod launches out of the holder and flies at least ten feet before it hits the river and begins screaming off downstream. The three of look at each other with a "What the???" look and as the rod is beginning to descend into the murky depths of the Mixmaster I hollered at the guys to grab the side rods and sweep them across the path of the disappearing rod.

Rod #1 swept on thru with nothing. Then big Joe, who's on rod #2 on the right side of the driftboat, sweeps his plug across the path of the fleeing rod and feels a pull on his line. I can still hear him saying, "I think I've got it...I think I've got it!"

Joe reels his line up and to our astonishment the single barbless hook on his plug had caught the silver bar that goes across the top of the Bantam 50 reels. Right about now is when we quit noticing the rain, which was now coming down even harder.

Buzzy grabs the rod from his dad and all be darned if the fish isn't still on there. There's well over a hundred yards of line out and I row downstream in pursuit of the steelhead while Buzzy picks up line as fast as he can reel. Ten minutes later we've got a chrome bright 18 pound steelhead laying in the bottom of my catch and release net. After we released the fish we sat on our knees in the freezing ass river water and laffed until we damn near cried.

I recall hooking four or five more steelhead that day...but none of them could surpass that awesome experience.

Another great day at the office

[WaveDancer]

Good stuff guys, I knew this thread could bring out a chuckle or three!!

WD.