July 19 2016: Fishing again after a long sleep

I asked at dinner how long people slept and the answers ranged from 10 hours to 15. We were a tired crew. I went to sleep at 6 PM, setting my alarm for 1 AM when I went out to check on the boats. (All were doing fine.) Then I went back to bed and slept until 7 AM. I understand that Matt went to bed as soon as he came in from the half tide we fished and just slept straight through until we went out today to reset the nets.

We pulled out one good anchor we had and Roy was able to perform emergency surgery and fix one we brought in today, giving us two straight-enough anchors to outfit the New Kid and the Ambi. The New Kid crew also added a lot of chain to their pretty-short anchor line. It is no longer short, but about half of it might be chain. I don't think that anchor will drag any more. It may not even get buried very deep in the mud, even on stormy days. The New Kid crew beached the skiff as the tide was going out and Jeff walked the anchor out. I knew we would be getting more wind on the early morning tide, so I wanted to reset the anchor as deep as possible to be sure the skiff wouldn't be anywhere near the swamp zone. Usually, we just pick up the anchor and walk through the mud, dragging the line and chain behind. There was no dragging that outfit. Oh my! I will await a report on how it is to work with... and if the anchor doesn't get buried any more, maybe I'll add some chain to the Ambi's anchor line.

The plan was to pile three of the nets into the Bathtub and use the ranger to drag it out to set the three outside sites at low water (about 10 AM) - or just as the tide was coming in. It would be moving slowly, coming from a big hold up low tide of 6' to a modest high of 17'. I like having the ranger safely off the mud flats when the tide is coming in.

Alas, our plans didn't work as planned. The first deviation was that I decided that I would run into town to grab a new net to replace some of the extra torn up net on #3 and drop off the Bathtub's bent anchor to Roy, hoping he would have the time to straighten in while I was there so I could take it back and have four functional anchors for four skiffs. I was glad to see that Trina was up and I asked if she wanted to go with me. Efficiency-minded as she is, she suggested that we combine trips because she was already planning to go in to get us gas, water, and mail. Sure, I thought, we can do that. I knew better than that - nothing in town takes only a few minutes and we only had a couple of hours. So we loaded everything up and I recruited Patrick to join us because I wasn't sure we could get the nets into the truck without some extra help. By the time we finished all the side errands it was already past our targeted time to set the nets. Even so, we didn't have enough room in the back of the truck for all the water, gas, and nets, so Trina and Bruce and Davey went back in anyway to get it.

As we pulled up to the cabins, we looked out and saw Jeff heading out with the ranger and a net in the back of it. The nets had been left in the Ambi (the nets for #1 and half of the inside) and the New Kid (the nets for #3, #4, and the other half of the inside). The Ambi and the New Kid were anchored on the moon crater mud where we haven't created ranger trails. Jeff intended to set #1 with the ranger, but he was driving in uncharted territory and the ranger was stuck. Really good and deeply stuck. Even with Matt and Inku pushing it, it was not climbing out. If I had been on that ranger, I'd have been very happy to see the truck pull up about then. Patrick went up for line because the line we usually use to tow the boats was in the back of the ranger under a net. We were able to pull it out, but overall, we found that the ranger just wasn't very successful pulling that Bathtub around through foreign mud.

Jeff was able to tow the Bathtub to the New Kid so we could pile those nets into it, but it wouldn't tow. So we decided to get the ranger to safety and just wait for the tide to reach us. The mud flats are flat, and from my years of fishing on foot, I remembered that the water isn't much deeper out at the outside sites than it is at the midpoints of the inside sites. Well, either that has changed or I didn't remember right. It was too deep to do a push set where we attach one end of the net to the buoy and push the boat along, letting the net pop out over the gunnel until we get to the other buoy, and then move on to the next net. I think that would have worked if we could have gotten out there at low water as we meant to, but now it was too deep. So it was either set it out of the skiff, or don't fish this tide either. That would have been too tough a pill to swallow, so we went for it.

The thing that made this an option was that Jeff had fixed the Yamaha outboard after its dousing on swamp night. He had just given it the final couple of pulls to be sure it worked. So we counted on that and we were not disappointed.

I am usually a disaster at deep water sets. Several things make those difficult. The buoys are attached to 50' anchor lines and they swing in the direction of the tide and the wind. When I try to motor around those anchor lines, they tend to wrap the prop, effectively anchoring the skiff, stern first. Further, the inside buoy does the same thing, so it will be 50' away from where we need it to be once we get the net in place, and we'll have to go get it in the skiff. So to avoid fouling the prop, we decided to run the skiff backwards and let the net run out the bow of the boat, and to give ourselves the elbow room we'd need to catch the inside buoy without letting go of the net, we attached extra line to the bottom end of the net so that even if the net left the boat, we'd have a line to it. Patrick, Matt, Austen, and Inku were part of this operation and each one was crucial and did his job perfectly. They were great! And it was very helpful that there wasn't any wind to speak of and that the current was mellow.

The first net we set was easiest. When there is less water, the current isn't as strong. As the water deepens, it becomes harder to overcome the current with the outboard. An outboard that no longer locks down, so in reverse, it kicks up. But they all went out like we had done it before. Yay us!!

We came in for pancakes made by Sarah - chocolate chips in some, pineapple and blueberries in others. Mmmm. And then we went out to fish.

We have some photos from today, and a few from the day David D left. We got a big king right after he left the boat, so here is the new Sarah and the new king.

And Austen, on his birthday, with his birthday king.

And Davey, with his peek-a-boo king.

And Patrick, with his pirate king. Behind him, the New Kid has joined the king party, with Inku on the left behind Patrick, and Oksanna and Jeff on the right.

Here we see Oksanna holding the king, with Jeff and Matt on the right behind her.

The New Kid got about 100 lbs in the next-to-last ebb pick through and took the skiff as far as they could into the beach to reduce the poundage we'd have to push across the mud. We waited in the Ambi to give them a ride out to the Bathtub. I couldn't choose which photo I liked best of them coming back out, especially after Patrick said that this would be the cover of their new album. So here they all are: Oksanna, Matt, Jeff, and Inku.

We got a big, beautiful red which Patrick admired greatly. So much that he felt music when he picked it up. Not just any salmon can inspire guitar riffs.

Jeff wisely persuaded me to skip the flood pick on the morning tide. This makes sense because the wind and current will be strong and it will be dark. And it's unlikely there will be many fish. So that means possibly a reasonable amount of sleep before our 5 AM pick.