I had my interview moved from Tuesday to Friday and now had a little free time.  I haven't taken my boat out in a bit so needed to stretch its legs.  I didn't prep the boat that night but knew I didn't have to be anywhere on Monday so I would just get ready on Monday.

I couldn't sleep... apparently, I did something stupid this weekend while drinking and now I fell back into a hole that I don't care to be in.  In any case, I'm over this and done with drinking.  At least I'm going to do my best to be done with it.  In any case, I hooked up the boat and only brought minimal gear.  I even left my tacklebox back at home.

I get down to the bay in crystal clear conditions!  I was expecting socked in fog from the forecast.



As I got closer to La Jolla, I saw the inevitable bearing down on me.



Boom!  Socked in and soaking wet!  I decided to soak a bait and keep my ears peeled for boats just in case since there were a few out here.

First drop and my rod doubles over!!  I made the mistake by trying to get the rod out of the holder when I should have just started cranking to make sure the circle hook was set.  Damn... Popped off, but at this point I had no idea of what it could have been.

Next drop and the rod doubles over again!  Holy Schnikeys!  I knew right away it was a big donkey yellow!
I have to admit, fighting it in the fog was awesome since no one else could see you hooked up and come over for the bent rod invitational!

34# Yellow!



The problem is I didn't bring a whole lot of bait, so catching these bastards were a little hurtful when I was thinking that it would better bet served for yellows.  LOL



I was using two rods at once, but only one was getting bit and it happened again!  This one hit and I knew it was huge, but didn't fight (or was as mean) as the last one.  It still took 10 minutes to land and I had to take my glasses off since they were covered with mist and I couldn't see sh!t.

Then it came into view and I was like HOLY CRAP!  On the scale it was 40.5# but the length should have been 50#!  It was a long skinny on!



I redrop the dropper loop and the egg sinker rod.  I kept the clickers off so no to alert the other boats I could hear in the mist.  What the hell!  Fish on again!  I'm fighting it and think I'm hooked up into my dropper loop rig.  Crap!  This was going to be a mess. 
Then I realize the two lines are going in different directions... DOUBLE HEADER!!!!!!!!!!

What a nightmare reeling in two 30+ pound yellows!  It literally took about 15-20 minutes to sort it out.  I had to button the drag to get them up to do my willing and not the other way around. 
FINALLY got the first one in and the second was already tired from fighting my rod holder.  LOL, both to gaff!  WTF!?!?  I have no more room in the kill bag!



I was sweating my ass off and the sun was starting to break up the fog.  I already have 4 fish on the boat from 32 to 40.5 pounds!  I still drop and immediately catch a big bat ray.  To be honest, that bat ray felt like a mackerel compared to those yellows.

I got a few more Sand Bass and decided to cast a fly lined bait out and reel the other ones up and call it quits.  2 hours of fishing for 140# of yellowtail was exhausting.  As I was prepping the boat to call it an early morning, I hear line screaming out.  No friggin way!  On again!

#5 hits the deck and the smallest of the day.  Only a 24 pounder!  LOL



I swear I was going to call it since I have yellowtail all over the deck, but heard other boats trying to locate me since they inevitably heard the deck flopping in the fog.



Then a few boats almost ran into me and others stopped right on me, so it was time to just pack it in.



I was back at the ramp at 10:30 am.....  even after driving back from LJ...  It was the craziest Yellowtail fishing I've ever had.  My buddy wanted to go out again this morning, but I need two hands to pick up my coffee cup since my shoulder is absolutely wasted at this point.

Anyway, I have a career coach meeting this morning for my interview later this week and have A LOT of yellowtail packed in 80 pounds of ice that needs filleting. 

Great day to be fishing and I really think this was the universe's way of saying I'm done with booze.

Thanks for reading!

I smoked the last loin of Bluefin from a few weeks ago and put in a batch of King Salmon....

This sh!t is soooooo GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Maple syrup basted smoked King Salmon.



It tastes better than the picture even looks.  LOL

Lake Crescent is home to a couple of unicorns.  Two subspecies of trout that evolved separately from the rest of the world due to a glacial lake getting damned by a huge land slide.

The two species are a Beardslee Trout and a Crescenti Cutthroat Trout.  Both are federally protected, so taking them out of the water is a no-no, so unfortunately my pics are not going to be impressive since they all have to be in the water.

In any case, It was my last full day in Washington and I wanted to do some lake fishing.  The National Park is gorgeous there and it would be a great way to end the trip.

Got there early, but up there it doesn't get light until 7:30 am.



I move spot to spot to try and locate them.



Well, here's a big Beardslee that I released, but should have gotten him sideways for a better picture. 



I kept picking here and there but enjoying the scenery.  I caught both my Beardslee and Crescenti!



I moved to a bunch of spots and did a short hike on one of the trails.







I then found them and caught one every other cast!  There is not many spots on the rocks to successfully release these guys so I didn't have to move from this spot.  I wish it was a better spot so I could get cleaner water shots, but it was sketchy for these old ankles.



I then get a better model Beardslee! 



75% of my fish were Beardslee's which was different from my last time here when it was 75% Cutthroat,



Smoke on the water.  Old dudes smoking weed like a train that came cruising by.



I caught quite a few Sculpin... which is what my lure was trying to imitate.





I hooked a monster on my first cast of the morning, but it cut me off on the rock ledge.  Never came close to seeing it.

Well, I got redemption!  It's a monster!



I got it 20' from shore and it's a 14-15 pound Beardslee!  It looked like a Steelhead!  The damn thing kept running to the rocks and as Steve remembers how deep and ragged this ledge was.  I thought I had him sliding up, but he made one last run and I actually stripped my gears in the reel.  Ugh.. I bought this reel for this trip to Washington when Steve and I went up here the first time 14 years ago.  It's been on a lot of trips, but something happened and I was having trouble trying to reel the handle.  Well, it found it's opportunity and gone. 

I actually had a second rod/reel with me so I switched the reels, but this reel was smaller.  Unfortunately, I also lost my favorite lure and only had 8" tube baits left which was a bear to cast with such a small reel. 

Casting stunk with what I had left, but I did catch a few lingcod sized sculpin.  LOL







I ended up with 14 trout and 4 sculpin.  Not a bad day at all for this lake according to Karry.  I felt a little bummed that I lost two big models, but I really won't complain.  It was a fantastic Trip!



I get back to the house and there is Karry with the new 25th anniversary hats!  They only had a limited supply but apparently Bill told Karry to get me a new hat since all my RS hats look too grubby.  I just told them I like my lucky hats.  LOL

I got to spend some time in the shop on the way home and it was pretty fun hanging out with the RS crew for about an hour before heading back to pack for my flight home.

New 25th anniversary hat!



Well, it was time to pack and we had some more sports and drinking to do.  It was a fantastic day and trip once again!
I can't say enough about these guys.

Oh, and the snow started to arrive as the mountain tops were covered.



Thanks for reading and until the next trip!

After two big days of fishing we needed to get the salmon all cleaned, and vacuum sealed as well as getting all of the eggs cured.  I was planning on fishing the lake, but Karry is a sports guy and we had the Jets, Seahawks, and then Mariner's Game to watch so we decided to just get it all done today.

We caught and released soooooo many, but these are only some of the ones we kept.



KLarry said the king meat was the most insane stuff he's ever seen.  It looked just like Coho.



I couldn't tell the difference, so I trusted what he said was true.



After watching another sh!tty Jets game, we got all of the salmon vacuum sealed.  It went right into the deep freezer so I had a lot of fish to bring home.



Next was salvaging the unused eggs and curing the new roe sacks.





You can see the Rainshadow in the distance...



Karry decided to cook up an epic meal so I ran out and got an epic bottle of red for it!



He pulled all of the spot prawns he caught and some tasty fresh T-Bones from a cow his buddy butchered.

It was fantastic, but the Spot Prawns were unbelievable!!!!



Initially we were going to go crabbing, but the Mariner's Game thwarted that possibility.  In any case, I wouldn't have traded this day for anything.  I retired out at my "Camper Motel" by the Gemini on a fantastic evening... but really cold.  lol

We drove a different route on the way back from Salmon fishing to Sequim.  This went right through the heart of the Olympic Peninsula.  What a gorgeous drive!  The air was so fresh with all of that oxygen and a hint of winter!

Day 2 was going to be on a different river system.  Since the Quinault was so low and there was only a small stretch we could get to with the river boat, we decided on the Queets river for today.  Our guide was Charles and we'd be drift boating.   Since the Queets is a generally deeper river, we knew it was going to be more crowded than the Quinault was.

We are fishing for the fresh salmon (aka Chromers) from the ocean so fishing the bottom portion of the river.  The King tides were going to push the salmon in and they would find their holes to hide in until dark when they shoot up river to find their next hole.  Bears and Eagles over millennia have this burned into their DNA.

We get to the launch and I watch the boat while they drive the tow vehicle down stream to where we end our journey.



When they say busy, they mean busy by "Reservation" busy.  Lol



My buddy Frank is the first person to take Squatch and I on the river 14 years ago and I only keep up with him on FB for all of those times after that.  Out of the darkness I hear "Where's that Frozen, waterlogged, San Diegan down here" and I immediately knew who it was without even seeing him! 

Charles told Frank we were down and he stopped by with his (shore based) client to say hello.  It was great seeing the Pacific North West Squatch!





Charles and Karry returned and we were off to the races.  I told them I saw a few boats already head out and they were on fire to get out there before someone got into their hole!  Lol



I was using the wicked lure while Karry went to twitching.  Fish were rolling all over.
Apparently, the Coho like the twitching and moving lures more than the kings and Karry showed me how it was done.  It reminded me of bay fishing in a way and I liked that style more than the wicked lure spinner.



It didn't take Karry long to pick up 2 Coho and lose another.



I didn't like the spinner fishing, so switched to the twitching jig and bam! 



Other boats started coming down river so we moved on looking for the big Chrome kings.



It was awesome seeing Karry and Charles read the water.  Granted, I saw the deep spots and had an idea what I needed to do, but they were super specific on what part of the hole to fish and exactly what kind of salmon would be in there in wait.



Charles was a crack up!



I then did a random cast at a hole and just as they were telling me I cast to the wrong part, I get slammed by a beautiful king!



I then cast to the spot they wanted me to cast in the first place and Wham!  An even BIGGER KING!  This was a Really nice model!



We moved to the next spot and Karry puts on his clinic with some stud Kings of his own!



I hated that stupid spinner so went to twitching again and got some more coho!  They weren't big models, but they were jumpers and put on a good show!



Karry went back to walloping more big Kings!  The dude is a big fish magnet!



We saw Frank at the rivers edge with his client so stopped to have a whiskey and share some fishing stories.



Frank showed off their salmon with "War Paint" as he called it.  Lol





We were at our limit, but Frank and his client were happy to take some of our catch.  That gave us more fish to catch/keep instead of just letting them go since Karry really wanted to see a monster go in the bag.



Karry gave them the fish, but said he wanted the roe in return since he needed to process and cure more of Karry's Berries.


Made him clean them right there for the eggs.  LOL



Then we get into the area where Karry suspected big ones. 



I decide to float eggs and the bobber just dipped a few times before disappearing!  Fish On! 
Oh Crap... BIG Fish on!  I couldn't control it and we tried to juke him and net him while he was still green since Karry said they are called Kings because they fight to the death.  f@ck, we missed on the net and he almost spooled me.  We saw this freakish monster and it was by far 3 or 4 times bigger than any we have seen up until this point.



We were pulling anchor so we could get some line back and keep him away from the logs on the shoreline, but it was too late.  Ugh, I was sick to my stomach, but got to see and fight a REAL Salmon!

I got most of the rig back, but the leader busted in the logs.  Karry was like "That is what we are going for!"

We reset up and then the inevitable happened.  Apparently it wasn't the only monster in the hole and Karry is on with a beast!



Same fight but he hooked his on a small spinner and not the baitcaster like I did!  It was amazing to watch him fight it because when I was hooked up with the big one, I was too worried about losing him the whole time.  Charles kept saying to cup the spool, but Karry was like "Just do what I say and we'll get him in".
It was a long ass fight and I have video, but it was a banana jaw monster!  Mine was about as big, but I don't remember seeing that beak that this one had!



Karry said it was his biggest Chromer King in 20 years!  He's caught them this big or bigger when they were all browned out from heading upstream, but this one was straight from the ocean!



He let me take a picture with it since I lost my beast after a 10 minute fight.  It wasn't the same as holding my fish up, but it did help my anxiety from losing such a big fish 20 minutes earlier. Lol



Karry said this shot would be front cover magazine material anywhere on the west coast including Alaska, and I believe him!  Wow!



Karry was exhausted and needed a break, but I kept grinding to get another chance at a beast.  I kept catching some really big Kings, but not the Kaiju I was looking for.
I'm not taking anything away from these Kings though as 10.5' rods and size 300 BC or 2500 Spinner seemed quite small for what we were doing.  LOL



I was dogging the spinner for 2 days since I didn't see a single one caught on it until that monster King.  I really wanted one on the spinner  and kept at it until I finally hooked and landed one on that dumb Wicked Lure.  LOL



I switched to eggs, but only caught some huge sculpin (lingcod) and went back to the spinner.  I saw the fish follow and hit it and was thinking I had a smolt when Karry said it was a sea-run cutthroat trout!  Definitely a first for me even though it's size was a bit small.



Well, we get to the pull out bank and it starts dumping.  The State Biologist asks if we caught anything (I didn't know state biologists were allowed on the Rez) and Charles says "Nothing"...  I'm perplexed why he would say we didn't catch anything, but apparently, they keep count and close the season if the quota is reached.  Not exactly sure of the politics going on, so I just ran up to the bushes to take a piss.

We got the boat on the trailer and headed back upstream to the launching spot to grab the other truck.  It was awesome sharing some stories over some victory whiskey before we took the long drive back to Sequim.



We had our limits of fish to clean and released twice as many as we caught.  What an epic trip!



Thanks for reading today's adventure!

Going to get the third and fourth installment up tomorrow.  Too tired right now.

Next day was the doozy!

Friday morning kicked off with packing the truck—quick and easy. Before long, we were rolling out on a familiar route I hadn't traveled in over a decade. Eleven years, to be exact.
We made time for good coffee and browsed a few tackle shops en route, soaking in the slow pace since we didn't need to meet our guide until noon. He had a court appearance earlier that morning—just part of the rhythm of life on the Rez.



We stopped at Lake Crescent to a beautiful scene.  Karry was telling me the Beardslee Trout have been crushing the dying Kokanee this time of year and we should see some big explosions.



Holy smokes we did!  I wish I brought my Lake gear, but I had Salmon in my mind.  We saw some huge trout crush some Kokanee up top!  It was quite amazing to see!





Tons of eagles this trip.  I've always seen a few, but they seemed to be everywhere on this trip!



We pass through Forks so I had to take a few pics for my "Twilight" wife and daughters.







Unfortunately we had to pass 15 culvert constructions which took up to a 5-minute wait on before moving forward but it's for dam removals and opening up the culverts for wild strains I guess.



We stopped at the Oxbow for a quick piss break and to stretch the legs.  Soon this area will be filled with Salmon.







We get back on the road and it's still another 1.5 hours to get there.  It still gets me seeing the trees cleared from logging, but I know we need our wood.



More of Karry's nemesis along the way.  I think 15 in total.



We stop at the Inn to get a room before fishing since we were going to spend the next 2 days fishing.



 

To our surprise, it was booked and everything in the area was apparently booked also.  Karry was perplexed, but we found a place at the Notel-Motel... Basically a rundown motel in the middle of the woods.

We meet up with our guide and follow him to the river.  Squatch knows this path since we took it with Frank 14 years ago at 70 MPH in a tiny truck.  Same road and just as scary when trucks were coming from the other direction.





We get to the launch and get the jet boat in the water.  Jet boats are only allowed on the Rez, so it made things easy for us.



First Fish Karry strikes first as usual!





I get bites, but it's back to back Sculpin!  The second one was huge, but I only took pics of the first.  I could feel the pressure to get a salmon! (Potentially a new species for my Life List)





Karry was rubbing it in as I missed my last two salmon bites on the berries.



Beautiful King!



I did the "Hero Drift" which is similar to the "Way Way Back" method and got slammed!  This one was a real one and my first real King Salmon!



We catch some Jacks up to 24" which didn't qualify to even want to keep I guess, so we just released them right away.
The water was low, so we had a tough time finding deep holes and it gets dark up there really fast so we made a final move.
Salmon were jumping everywhere, but the didn't want anything we threw at them.  We were twitching feather jigs, spinners and floating berries.
I finally get another good one on the berries!  These things are awesome and fight to the death!



The fish were now going crazy 30 yards downstream so we lifter anchor and drifted back.  Karry get a Coho on the jigging rod and I get walloped on the berries again!  Another toad King!  This one was definitely long and skinny though.



We kept 4 from the dozen and decided to call it the day since we still had a 45 minute ride back to the notel and it was getting dark quick.



We get back in time to watch the long ass baseball game (Karry is a die hard Mariners fan).  They finally won it in 15 innings, so I could finally get some sleep.  Hahaha

We prepped for the next morning's float trip with Charle's on the Queet's river, so a different river all together.

I'll try to get the next day's trip up later today.

Until then, I hope you are enjoying the read!

This topic has been moved to Freshwater Boat Fishing Reports.

https://www.prehistoricsoulforum.com/index.php?topic=5737.0

Well, after going back and forth, I pulled the trigger to do some salmon fishing up in Washington with Karry.  This job search has been draining my soul and I needed something to give me a lift.

The flight was really early and full to boot.  I had to get into vacation mode on the plane with a good coffee with my cookie.  lol



Arrived at SeaTac and grabbed the rental.  Traffic was unbearable and it took a while to get out of the chaos and into the country where I felt all my issues melt away.



Soon as I got past the Tacoma Narrows bridge, things started to really mellow out.



The second narrows bridge is where I knew I was getting into a little bit of Rainforest heaven.



I get close and stop into a burger bar joint in Downtown Sequim.  Burger and Beer were fantastic!



I stop down at the shop and was greeted by some of the coolest guys in the business.  I sat and chatted with Bill and his uncle for a while and looked over his ever expanding custom rod collection!  I took video but need to figure out how to post it on the forum...



Karry was working his butt off since he took Friday off also to get some weekday fishing in.  We talked for a bit and I was pretty stoked when they kept introducing me as "Pro-staff in San Diego".  I felt like a kid again.



I was going to rent a motel room, but Karry said they had a Camper out back that would be much better.  It was all hooked up and to be honest, felt like I was on a camping trip!



Home for a week.



My view out of the door.



We started prepping for fishing on Friday and I checked out one of Karry's tackle rooms.  All 3 were filled to the brim!



Time to make "Karry's Berries".  Special curing process for the salmon eggs.  It was quite the procedure but well worth the work you had to put in.  Steve remembers the process.







Packed them into the custom berry holders and we were ready for Friday!





We ran into some issues on getting someone for the morning to get us out.  Apparently, the kid had a morning court date but could get us out in the afternoon.  Good thing is we weren't leaving at 3:00 am, so we had time for coffee and take our time in the morning to get up there.

What a hell of a first day.  I'll try to get Day 2 up later today or possibly tomorrow morning at the latest.

To be continued!

I asked Karry for a shirt for you but they only had up to XL. Apparently most of their stuff was given out at shows this year.
Said you'll have to come up for a hat. Lol

I just have to give a shout out to Bill and Karry Batson for the incredible trip up in the Olympic Peninsula.  I was quite honored when they introduced me to the staff as their San Diego Pro-Staffer. Something a younger me always wanted to be but never really expected to hear from such a big company.





I have a lot of pictures to sort through now....

Quote from: jrodda on October 09, 2025, 12:00:31 PMTom is off on some adventure so I thought I'd share one of Alicia's recent concoctions using some of the halibut from last week. Halibut tortellini with mascarpone. It was very good.

That looks quite good!  You can't beat fresh halibut at all.  It kind of goes with everything.  Yummm

Such a cool trip to the islands!  I only went for the first time last year and it was quite incredible.

I never got to see lava though so I'm a little jealous.  hahaha