I begged borrowed and bribed my co-workers to cover for me so I could get Friday off since I can't go fishing this weekend when the sockeye season closes. On Thursday I took out my friend Brad, his daughter Rachel, and Brad's dad, Lenny. We started at 4:30 and launched from the Atlantic Park ramp. The wind was blowing brisk out of the SW so I lined us up to drift from Rainer over to Mercer Island. Each drift took about 20-30 minutes. The fishing was very good. In fact, better than most mornings. We fished the standard rigs deep, 70-90 feet on the rigger, letting the wind blow us along. In the course of the evening we caught six sockeye, lost a couple, and had another 4-5 hits. We stopped fishing at 8 pm. Both red and black hooks worked well for us.

Friday morning I took my boys out for our last year 2000 sockeye trip. As I type this, my body is still swaying to the rocking of the boat. The wind had shifted this morning, coming out of the NE. So we ran to the Mercer Island tip and drift with the wind down the channel and toward Rainer beach. We used the kicker to maintain steerage. Again, standard rigs at 70-90 feet deep. We had three poles out, stacking two on one rigger. There was no distinct AM bite, but we had a steady stream of hits every 30-45 minutes. We ended up catching four nice fish and losing two at the boat, as well as having several other hits. It was a most enjoyable morning. My nine year old Matt took over the electric downrigger and did quite well running it on his own. The crowning moment of this season came at 11:55 am, as our last pole still in the water jerked sharply with a fish at 90 feet on the rigger. My six year old, James, did a great job bringing in the largest fish of the day, an eight pound buck. The fish had a gash in it's side from nets.

We had a great 12 day season and it ended way too soon. I managed to get two good friends out on the water and went out six times. I am very tired and also somewhat depressed. I'm sad that it's over. I will miss this fishery and look forward to hopefully having one in four years (maybe less- we can hope- right?). I hope lots of you readers got to get out as well.

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