After 5 consecutive trips at Neah Bay with some major disaster happening, today I broke my bad karma streak! I had an uneventful, relaxing trip out in the boat without anything breaking or falling in the water!

Heres the total damage from the "bad time":

One yahama motor cowling...sunk ($375)
One loomis 1025... broken ($250)
One Gerber Muli-tool ...overboard. ($50)
2 broken downrigger cables, including releases and weights. ($60)
3 lost flashers (never lost one previously) ($30)
One 2/0 barbed gamakatsu buried in my hand courtesy of a friend who swore it was barbless..(priceless)


Oh and I also got an 18lb king, a 9 lb silver! and my bonus pink for the smoker!

I'll be out there [yes again] Thursday- Sunday] you going again?

Geez..I thought I was having a bad karma streak losing my friend's rod and reel overboard with a fish on the line, breaking two other rods and dropping parts to the coffee pot overboard twice....Beyond that I had the best week of fishing in my life.

JG..the tropical water has moved in close..We may try for tuna this weekend.

A funny story from out there last September...we took two boats, and my buddy had a friend on his that had a brand new lami set up with a calcutta. They were trolling flashers and herring with bananna weights, and this guy places his rod in my buddy's new custom rod holders (which happened to be sections of PVC fastened with only one screw at the bottom!) Well, along comes about a 20 pound coho, grabs the herring, and of course the rod "holder" rotates 90 degress and the there goes the rod like it was shot out of a cannon! The fish proceeds to jump about ten times just to further taunt the guy, who apparrently didn't say a word for the rest of the day.

Elkrun, sounds like you are just getting your boat tuned up for the rest of the summer!

This time of year is always expensive for boaters who Salmon fish. Either stuff gets broken, or your list of "must haves" increases exponentially!

How right you are, Sky-Guy! My total losses so far-

1 crab trap, rope, hardware
3, yes 3 broken rods
3 flashers, rigs
1 downrigger ball
various harware- i.e. pliers, clippers, etc.
Countless tanks of gas
Two spun bearings/ruined hubs
1 entire set of trailer lights/wires (shorted and burned)
1 5 wire to 4 wire converter

About $700, best I can figure. Pretty bad dollars spent/fish in freezer ratio this year so far.

My wife keeps telling me to get a membership at Sportco.

It's an expensive hobby.

My Neah Bay bad luck story is from a trip I just got back from on Sunday night.

I bought Neah Bay marina gas that had water in it. Little motor won't start now and will need fixing of some sort. My little 8 hp Yamaha is carbureated and has the reservoir filled up with water. The big motor has fuel injection and ran poorly with their gas, but has the ability to pass it thru without going belly up.

Fill your tanks up before heading up.

You can have bad luck at the Pillar Point boat launch at Pysht also. My last trip there I attempted to launch at a low tide, about 1.5 foot, which is not a good idea even with a light 16 foot aluminum boat. The launch is completely dry at that tide so you have to drive out on the beach, and the water is only a foot deep for about a quarter mile. In the process of shoving mightily on the boat to get it off the dry trailer I slipped on the seaweed and jammed my knee against the trailer frame, which dislocated it nicely (my knee, not the frame unfortunately). I snapped it back in joint and limped around for awile, debating whether to go to the doctor now or later, but later won out and after disconnecting the trailier and jacking the boat up so I could gain enough slope to push it off, I went out and caught two keeper kings. Actually felt good enough after that (and some ice on the knee while trolling) that I camped out and fished the next morning and caught two more kings. By the time I got home and to the doc the knee was pretty swollen, but since I don't seem to have torn anything and it is still functional they just wrote me a prescription for a knee brace and anti-inflamitories and sent me on my way. Think I would rather break my rod than my knee

I'll be out there wednesday and friday. I monitor channel 16 and will answer to elkrun. I'm in the 20' hewescraft searunner/ forest green canopy. If your in the neighborhood, give me a call!

Spawnout, Can you still buy the combo to Silver King from M&R? That is a great little launch. Much cheeper than surgery and meds.

We'll be fishing Canadian Halibut and salmon, I'll try to give you a holler. We also moniter 16, I would answer to Jerry Garcia.

I cant decide where I'll be... i might go catch a couple butts.. but Umatilla is calling too! If I go south I'll be hard to reach. If I dont hear from you, good luck on the flatties!