Did anyone catch anything, or what? We ran all over and still haven't caught a thing.
...I heard some rumors of big catches.
Salty
2008-07-07 16:10:16
An absolute wonderful opener here. Found the fish the day before the opening, or what looked like fish on the color sounder and by the guides catch and releasing, and so was pretty amped for opening morning in spite of being run over by my truck and suffering a seperated rib, compression fracture in my neck, and various scrapes and bruises the Friday before the opening.
Opening morning was beautiful, there were very few boats in the area, only one partner, and they spread out pretty fast. Lots of feed and we were able to use the 3D Nobeltec bathymetric mapping we had done last season and the previous evening to really rub the pinnacles about 3 fathoms deeper than I had ever fished the drag before. Not great production but fair, especially for this year, the first morning. Nothing like having over 100 caught, cleaned,and iced by 8 am which I have done twice on opening morning. More like 20 by 8 am this year. Nevertheless it was fun and an old friend who I had advised that there might be some fish in the area before the opening called on the Ross radio scrambler and advised me that the fish extended out into the 40's so after the bite slowed down in the pinnacles we moved off shore a bit for the afternoon.
The weather was the most memorable thing about this opening as with my injuries it would have been extremely difficult to work in heavy or even sloppy weather. As it was my wife and cousins boy did a great job handling the fish and I was able to keep up the steering and radio chatter with my various partners and friends. A relatively new lure that a good friend of mine has been working on for a couple of years really worked which was fun. With very few boats around the fishing held up, the weather got even nicer, and a few cohos started showing. With the prices it was the most valuable trip I ever put on the boat even though the king total was less than I have had in one good opening day and about half of what I have had in other 5 day trips.
Busy sending some off to restruarants this morning. Hope you all did good. Some of my partners on the grounds had fabulous trips but otherwise the guys on the coast had to scratch pretty hard. Looks grim for coho.
yak2you2
2008-07-08 05:57:44
OK Salty, I have to ask... how did you get run over by your truck??? At least it sounds like you had a good trip to make up for it, glad to hear that. :D Probably way to soon, but has anyone heard any rough estimates of how much of the quota was taken? Sure would be nice to get another 5 day opener, or any opener for that matter. For once we had a really good king showing around Yakutat, I was very pleased with my tally. Cohos were pretty scattered around here too, but i'll tell you what, I've never seen such big healthy fish for this time of year, I'm hoping to see the price start coming up considerably for them, they are market quality, and since there doesn't seem to be alot of sockeye around right now for our gillnet fishery, i'd like to go chase them around for a while, but our advace price was a 1.00 per lb. and that's not going to fly with today's fuel prices.
How about the weather huh? I got a sunburn! That was the most fun fishing i've had in a long, long time. Except,,,, I lost the biggest king i've ever caught on a hook in my entire life, I wanted to cry, but hey, can't have it all go your way right. Sounds like the final price for our kings is going to be 6.00 per lb., that sound pretty close to what Sitka's paying?
Salty
2008-07-08 14:17:03
A sticky ignition switch led to a dead battery which led to replacing it. Not very bright to leave the truck in gear with the key in while replacing the battery. When I hooked up the hot lead the truck started and ran over me. I thought I was dying when I went under the bumper. Fortunately it has big wheels, it ran over a rock wall with the right wheels and there was a little depression in the driveway where it went over me.
We sold for $6.50 per lb for reds and $4.50 for whites. Nice coho here too.
Good luck
yak2you2
2008-07-17 14:58:31
Ok, enough time's gone by. Somebody must have some catch numbers by now. How many did we put in??, can't be much more than half of our quota( such as it is). Anybody heard when the next opener might be???? and, will we get to clean up the rest of our winter quota???
Salty
2008-07-17 18:18:49
I talked to Brian this week. We are about right on for the 70% we are targeted for the first opening. The winter king quota not harvested is rolled into the spring and summer. Our next opening will be after the August coho closure.
Tough scratch for coho so far.
yak2you2
2008-07-18 00:26:18
Yeah not many Cohos around so far, but the shortage and quality should at least push the price up, in theory. No shortage of kings of course, but I suppose they'll all be moved on by mid-august closure, to bad.