2014-06-30 More fishing with Jennifer & Memo

My daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend Memo are still in town and still had not caught any fish, so we had to remedy that.

Today we pulled out about 8:45 AM and headed South this time towards the Mountain Point area.  This is a popular fishing area, and it has an added bonus that other areas don't have.
Because there is a hatchery in the area this is deemed a "Terminal Harvest Area" by the Fish & Game and there are more lenient rules in effect.  In this area residents and non-residents alike can catch 6 King salmon of any size and keep them.  In other areas the limit is 2 per person and they have to be 28" or more.  Lisa and I got a 21" King in this area a few weeks ago and released it not knowing about the special rules.

Here's the Mountain Point area on a map snippet.  It's just a few miles from Ketchikan.
As you go around that corner and head north, you come to Herring Cove, which is where the fish hatchery.  I think the Fish & Game allows "snagging" at various times of the year because there are so many fish there.  But I have no interest in snagging.

One would assume that the presence of a fish hatchery would pretty much guarantee good fishing, but most fish lose their drive to eat when they get into spawning mode.  But, it is still a good area to fish.

We got started trolling around 9:30 AM, just trolling 2 lines even though we could have trolled 3.  With my 2 downriggers it's just easier to work with 2 lines.

The weather started out rainy and overcast with a SE breeze, but later in the day it cleared up and got real nice.

Over the course of the rest of the day we kept at it and eventually ended up with 2 Silvers, 1 Pink, and 2 small to medium Kings.  They were both under 28" but we were able to keep them since we were in the Terminal Harvest area.

We lost a few along the way, but that's just part of the deal.

Lots of kelp in this area, which makes it hard because you have to keep stopping to clear it off the gear.  Just slows you down.

We had a little bit of excitement right at the end of the day.  We had seen a sea lion in the area, but we didn't know how close he really was.  We hooked a nice Silver.  We knew it was a nice Silver because most of the time they go aerobatic and you can see them.

Memo was reeling it in when the sea lion came along and grabbed it and ripped it off the line!
Ach!  Not fair.

Here's the best pic I could get, from Jennifer's camera.  I zoomed it up a bit.

Here are some wrap up pics we took back at the dock before the cutting began.

In case anyone is wondering, I filleted the fish and we just put them in zip locks temporarily.  When we got home we vacuum packed them and froze them.