The early morning tide brought about 6500 lbs and this bullhead. I think its real name, according to the Fishes of the North Pacific Coast poster in my cabin, is "Irish lord" (apologies to my Irish friends). We had enough time to get a photo of Chris touching it - he was fascinated that you could see the... was it the esophageal or epi-gastric sphincter? We took it around to the other boats for show and tell - they were suitably grossed out except for Hugh who wanted a closer look. Chris told him to stick his hand in its mouth. That, I wouldn't do. I don't know whether Hugh did or not, but he still has all his hands.
On the afternoon tide of this day (almost 6000 lbs) we made an unfortunate discovery: the ground has changed out by the outside sites to a sand bar without the couple of inches of slick mud.
The ground consistency, starting from the cliff goes: clay-y mud from the cliff to about 20' from the cliff, giving way to 10-20' of sand and a few big rocks (scary for outboards and walking in the water - can't see them so we trip and fall if we don't remember to be careful) to 20'-30' of gravel and a few big rocks, to a strip of sand, to an expanse of sticky (and slick) mud that extends to about 600' and then up until this season, it was hard sand covered by a patina of sticky/slick mud. The difficulty of sticky/slick mud is the sticky part: it's hard to walk through and impossible to drive through (except with a ranger). The advantage of sticky/slick mud is the slick part: the Bathtub, with its perfectly flat bottom, will slide over it easily enough that when the crew is feeling energetic, they can push it by hand the 600'-1200' to the sand where the buyer can take delivery of the fish. Now, we still have the very sticky 600' that only the ranger can drive through, but if the boats are farther out than that, it's very hard to drag them across it, especially with a load, because we don't have the slick part.
Our sites are arranged as one inside site and three outside sites. The inside site could be fished anywhere in its 300' lateral space from way up on the beach in the gravel (so the net would extend from the gravel to 50 fathoms (300') out into the water from there, putting a little more than half the 50 fathoms of net in the sticky mud), or starting at 300' away from the beach and extending to 600' out, all in the sticky mud. Or any place in between. Some people split their nets into two 25 fathom pieces and fish one piece on the gravel and one deeper. We fish the whole thing deep. Our outside sites are set beyond the sticky stuff in the hard sand (now without the patina of sticky mud). So when I glance over the beach to check our buoys, our boats, our sites, I start with #1 which is set at about 900'-1200' out from the beach; then looking 300' to the north, I see the "inside site," set at about 300' to 600' out from the beach; then another 300' to the north is our #3 site, set at about 900'-1200' and 300' north of that, also 900'-1200' from the beach is site #4. I think our outside sites are about a quarter mile from the base of the cliff and are now on hard sand without slick mud, but past the sticky 600'.
We try to deliver as many of our fish as possible out of the skiffs, but when the tide recedes enough to reveal that strip of sand before the sticky mud starts, it's hard to get the boats in and the Gehl and truck can't come out. After that, it's delivery by Bathtub and ranger or by hand or by little sled or by however we can get those last ebb fish delivered. That's the big challenge of the outside sites and the reason that seasons with mostly ebb-caught fish are so difficult. The neighbors have had a "drag bag" developed that I wanted to copy but I couldn't quite communicate the order successfully and will have to try again.
So instead of the easy delivery our crew expected at the end of the tide - towing the Bathtub full of fish in for delivery using the ranger, and then towing it back out again to be in position for the 12:30 am set, they ended up pitching the fish into the box on the back of the ranger and bringing them in by the 1000 lb load to the beach for delivery.
This was also the day that the neighbor's ranger died out on the mud flats (one of my equipment nightmares) so David rushed out there to tow it in (definitely the priority) and then went to delivering our fish.
This was also the tide we decided a) to change out the nets - two of our nets had big holes torn in them; and b) to set the three outside sites at the same time, meaning anchoring the Grayling with its net on one of the outside sites instead of the inside site. I noticed on the last 11:30 pm set that we were in pretty deep water by the end of our set.
Because of the strong wind and current, it is much safer and saner and more successful to set the nets on foot, pushing the boat along in the rising tide with the nets popping out behind us as we walk, rather than setting it without any foot on the ground to control the movement of the boat. But when the tide gets too high, we can't really do that without taking a bath in the very cold water.
My concern about the night sets was that we started the set in about hip-deep water and by the time the Bathtub finished setting #3, it was closer to waist deep. That tide can rise very quickly - from 0' to 23' in six hours. With the wind behind it, it is moving. That means that in 15 minute's time, the water will go from ankle deep to just below the knees. In another 15 minutes, it's halfway up the thigh, and so on.
So I thought that at least we could set all three outside sites immediately after the opening commences, and then walk a boat with the second net to set the slightly shallower inside site.
The process of getting the ebb fish delivered, the nets ready to set and the boats in place required a lot of extra time that the uncomplaining crew would have liked to have spent sleeping.
Equipment update: the propane truck seems to be running again and is now filled with propane; the outboard on the Grayling is working as well as it ever has (doesn't idle well) and we thought the power roller on the Bathtub was repaired, but it still doesn't have enough power to help. Still no New Boat.
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