Patterson Reunion Thursday
July 7
Last year only two of us caught salmon, and we had only three
altogether, so we planned to wait for albacore before heading out
again. However, we had the unusual luck in that the salmon run started
very late this year, so we tried salmon fishing again. This time we
used the charter that we used from 2001, as he was back in business
after taking time off to recover from back problems.
We had followed his web site, and almost every day for the past 3 weeks
they had limited out: 2 salmon per angler, and a few days they were
done by 7:30 AM. The exception was the day before our trip, when 6
people caught only 3 salmon. Yikes.
Great Dave, Grand Dave, Don, Alissa, Melissa, and Paul left at 6 AM for
our adventure. We went to the spot where they had been limiting out,
and we were there with just about everyone else. There were probably 50
boats in the area, including a couple of big party boats.
We got a couple of hits, but the only thing we caught was one little
3-pound salmon, which we threw back.
Captain Joe steamed off to a new spot on the west side of Santa Cruz,
but we still didn’t catch a thing for hours, just a few random hits.
Captain Joe changed one line from live bait to a fake squid, just to
change our luck.
At 11:30AM, 5.5 hours after we started and less than 2.5 hours before
the end of our trip, Alissa caught our first real Salmon, about 18
pounds. It hit the squid. The good news is that we wouldn’t be skunked.
About 30 minutes later Great Dave caught a 23-pound salmon, again on
the fake squid. Joe changed the poles so only one had live bait, and
then 30 minutes later, Grand Dave caught a 15-pounder. With less than
1.5 hours left, we had just matched last year and the Wednesday catch.
Around 1 PM, Melissa caught another 18-pounder, leaving Don and Paul
without a salmon. This was surprising, since each year, these two vied
for the biggest fish. At 1:30 Captain Joe starting cleaning the fish
and his boat, as he was getting ready to head back. He was cleaning the
last fish when a “bait ball” came under the boat. One line was hit, but
by the time we saw it and picked up the pole, the fish was off the
hook. Immediately, a second line was hit, and Don grabbed it. Then a
third line was hit, and Paul grabbed it. Don landed a 18-pounder, and
at 1:45 PM, Paul landed a 24.5-pounder, the biggest salmon of the day.
It was a dramatic end, making it a great day of fishing. I suspect we
did better than most other boats did that day.
The Greats cooked 10 pounds salmon for dinner, and we took 50 pounds to
be smoked at the Corralitos Market and Sausage Company.
