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April 11, 2006

Just For The Halibut

In which I detail my weekend fishing trip; that's right, fishing trip

Mixed it up a little bit this weekend. A friend generously invited me to join him for opening day of halibut season on Puget Sound. Opening day sounded good (an event, at the very least), and I knew I really enjoyed eating halibut. My buddy had all the gear: the house with the dock, the boat, and the sundry rods and tackle boxes and little fishing doodads. Most importantly, he had a working knowledge of how in the hell you go halibut fishing in Puget Sound and the patience to deal with me.

I'll admit that I was pretty excited to check it out. Generally speaking, I haven't done a terribly good job of getting out of the greater C@L area and exploring the region. I mean, people are always talking all this game about how "beautiful" and "lush" the Pacific Northwest is; I figured it was about time that I go see what (at least some of) the hubbub was about. And though I hadn't really done much fishing since I was about 14, I certainly was willing to give a shot.

My quick hits from opening day of halibut season (and yes, we did obtain fish licenses, for halibut):

It's Called Mutiny Bay; It's Near Deception Pass: we fished off Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, in a bit of water called "Mutiny Bay." I really couldn't get enough of that, since you don't name things "Mutiny Bay" unless there's once been a mutiny thereabouts. And mutinies imply all sorts of cool pirate stuff, and I've been enjoying something of pirate renaisaance of late. So. I was pretty excited about the Mutiny Bay thing. Also, to get to the island at all we went over this thing called Deception Pass. I dunno. It all made me feel like I should go and rewatch Twin Peaks or something.

Beautiful In A Really Monochromatic Sort Of Way: the greater Puget Sound region certainly earned its reputation as being, errr, overcast and rainy this weekend. I have to imagine that being out on a boat in the Sound on a sunny summer day is pure pleasure, but, ummm, it was far from sunny. There was a certain point where I just completely lost track of the fact that it was raining. Also, there were definitely moments where I thought we had taken the boat to Pleasantville, what with the complete and total absence of color out on the water. Gray. Very gray.

Kitted Out (Including Killing Spear!): so one of the cool things about fishing is that you get to use lots of cool/ specialized gear. Beyond just the depth finder on the boat, there were all sorts of lures, and hooks, and fish-seducing jellies. They had an extra set of waders for me (at least I think that's what they're called). Those I was really into, and not just because of the rubber bootie attachments that were keeping my feet dry. (You can tell I come from a long line of sportsmen and outdoor types.) And, of course, there was the killing spear. Which brings us to....

Errr, How Big Are These Things? so the reason we needed the killing spear is that your average halibut in Puget Sound weighs between 60 and 120 pounds. Were we to actually hook one, we would have used the killing spear (it's not really called that, in all fairness) to puncture its little fish brain wait for it to die. Apparently handguns also do this quite nicely. There's apparently no bringing the fish into the boat until it's dead. That seemed a smart idea to me. Of course, we didn't actually catch anything. Or, rather, we just caught a couple little baby ones (excuse me, juveniles) that we graciously threw back. So despite our best efforts, we didn't really get a result out there.

They're Called Land Sea Lions; I Tame Them: despite the fact that we didn't bring in a delicious halibut for our dinner, it was still a pretty good day, nature wise. We saw a common loon (and I quote: "They're actually not that common") and a sea lion gnoshing on a dogfish. I tried to get a good photo, but my gooey gloved hands were even more clumsy than usual. Also, there were a bunch of seagulls pissing him off looking for scraps and so he didn't hang out at the surface for very long. Still, I didn't expect to see a sea lion; I thought they only existed as part of environmental propaganda!

Oh right, and I forgot to mention the other part of going fishing where you sit in the boat and drink low-end Mexican beer all day. That helped things. Still, it was good stuff. Thanks again to my generous host -- I hope I can get up there again this summer and actually catch and eat something.

Posted by thatkid at April 11, 2006 11:55 PM under C@L , ThatKid

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Posted by: screwsan at April 12, 2006 9:29 AM

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