Red Silvers

I just had to go one more time to the Humptulips. I convinced my wife to go. I was surprised she didn't balk at the 4 a.m. departure time. Tim called the day before we were going and I got him and his wife Teri to go too. They called a few hours later and said that Clint and his buddy Jake wants to go too. Excellent. It's always a blast fishing with friends.

The river didn't dissapoint. We went to our new favorite hole and it gave us a great fall fishing day. Everyone of us caught fish. The highlight was the two 20+ lbs red silvers Clint and his friend Jake caught. The fish were willing biters that day.

For the adults; Tim fed some cured eggs to a 12 lb king that he landed and kept, Teri hooked 3 fish but she wasn't able to land them, Kandi landed and released one nice red silver, and I manage to wrangle a bright 7 lb silver to the net and landed 5 other red silvers and missed a few more. I also landed one chum early in the morning. Another memorable trip in the books. I can't wait till next year.

Dream Boat

It's going to be a long wait till I'm ready to purchase another boat. About a year in my estimation. In the meantime I guess I get to research and do a little window shopping and day dream.

It seems that my scope is changing again. I'd like something a little bit more salty than the regular North River Seahawk I had in mind. Good thing is that they offer an offshore model. We went to the NR store in Sumner and checked out the 24 foot model.

This thing had a nice sized deck that would easily fit 4-6 fishermen. The cabin is only 6 feet - a bit on the small side. But the basic layout can seat 4. Overall a great layout and good power combination. I'd be comfortable taking this kind of boat out to the tuna grounds.

One of those days

Tim and I fished the Humptulips on the October 23rd. The fish were finally on the move. The nets were in the day before we came. It turned out to be one of our best days for 2006. We hooked into so many fish that we lost count. Above is Tim's 22 lb King which bit a spin-n-glo. We also had on numerous big silvers that we just couldn't hold onto. This is the river that will cough up a trophy silver. I hope to get one!

Humptulips Opener

Low and clear.

The river has not seen rain for months. We had to drag the drift boat in a lot of places on the river. There were a few kings and even less silvers. The river needs a good shot of rain to get the fish to move up stream.

Tim and I managed to pull out a silver a piece.

Tuna

We booked our tuna trip with Deep Sea Charters out of Ilwaco from last year's Sportsman's Show. We chose to go on Sept 16 based on Tim's friends past experience.

The one day trip made for a very long day. We had to check in at the charter office at 2:15 a.m. Tim and I didn't get to Ilwaco until 10:30 the noight before. Needless to say, we got no sleep. The no sleep contributed to my sea sickness when we finally left the dock at 3 a.m.

I was sick all the way to the fishing grounds. When we finally got to tuna town I was able to take a power nap before the first fish was caught (which was caught by me - I paid my dues I suppose). The nap was enough to make me feel better. I was fine for the rest of the day.

I was really surprised that we did not have any live bait on board. We relied on trolling which produced 18 fish for 10 passengers. I believed that if there were live bait we could have easily doubled the numbers. We didn't even have any rods rigged and ready to fish the slide when a fish got hooked.

We hope to improve the experience next year.