Friday evening and time for a pictorial update followed by a new Tyee registered tonight update ending with my sob story of the night update.
So here we go with Ken Enns, Todd Beadle and a lady holding aloft their recent 30 1/2 pounder. Took a spoon.
Next we have a new member of the Tyee Club, one Judy Janzan with her 32 pounder fooled by a plug and rowed by Rick Janzan.
And then there's new member of the Tyee Club Donna Garber with her very nice 34 pounder rowed by Dale Blackburn. It too fell for a plug.
Finally, we have a pair of old-timers who apparently still get excited when they register a Tyee with their 37 pounder from Thursday morning. John Barker on the rod and Joe Painter on the oars.
They also caught a 28 1/2 pounder this morning I'm told. By the way, their 37 was caught on a spoon.
This brings us to tonight when I saw Jeremy Maynard tow a fish out of the pool earlier, watched as they fought it and heard the whoops of joy when Jeremy netted it and declared it a Tyee simply by looking at it.
And it was, and is now the newest Tyee registered as at an hour ago. No pic yet but I think the new member is named Blair Howell and his fish weighed 37 pounds.
Here's the pic.
And now for the sob story.
You'll recall I rowed an old pal named Dano to a 29 1/2 pounder a while back, after four or five years of nothing, so when I had need of a rodman tonight I called and asked if he'd like another try.
He was available so we arranged to meet at my boat and I got busy setting up three rods. I put my ancient The Stewart spoon on one rod, a severely scarred up with teeth marks plug called The Silver Horde on another and a brand new Rex Field Shovel-nose plug on the third.
Getting out just before high tide with little water movement we started with the spoon, figuring I could vary speeds until we got it to beat properly until the ebb flow picked up a bit.
Turning inside around the big red mooring buoy at the south end of the pool we got a solid whack but didn't hook up. That was encouraging for sure but I wanted to try both plugs also, so after giving the spoon a good swim we switched to the old Silver Horde. It twitched and wiggled ok but I wasn't impressed by its action so after two trips we quickly switched to the Rex Field.
Having fished it once before I knew it had a quick action, being much slimmer in the tail section, but I recognized the flow conditions were such that I should be able to fish it deep and slow, which is what you want for big fish usually, and there were a lot of big fish showing in a certain area of the pool so I concentrated on that area and found myself in a really good spot with the plug working well and reacting well to my speed changes too.
And then the rod dipped and I yelled "Hit it!"
Dano didn't hit it right away but did react quickly when I repeated myself.
Again, it didn't seem like much of anything and I actually feared for an instant I'd fooled another Dogfish, but a short strong run changed my mind so I found my opening and towed whatever we'd hooked outside of the pack where I reminded Dano of a couple of things whilst maneuvering around to get the fish downstream of us.
It wasn't anywhere near being an exciting battle but once again we realized we had a strong and stubborn fish hooked up so we took our time and Dano traded line back and forth with the fish as best he could.
Ten minutes later and I was still trying to row away from the fish as it sounded, came half way back then made several more short runs before showing itself some 40' or so away from us.
It looked big. Actually quite big, having both length and a huge tail.
It was definitely a Tyee, judging by what we could see of it, but I didn't allow myself to say it quite yet.
I was afraid to.
Didn't want to jinx things.
Five minutes later and we had the fish closer but still stubborn and strong, which it demonstrated by making the longest run of the fight and back towards the pool too.
I rowed madly to haul the darn thing back outside as someone else rowed out south of us with a fish in tow also.
Dano stayed right tight on the fish and remarked it seemed to be weakening a bit after the long run it had made. I knew I was.
But it would not come near the boat for what seemed like an increasingly worrisome time, worrisome in that the longer they are hooked the easier it can be for the hook to come free.
And that's exactly what happened moments after Dano had the fish near the boat for the first time where it thrashed wildly before making another short run away.
He turned it easily so I picked up the net and waited for him to bring it within range.
Literally two feet short of the net it made a mad flip and the plug flew up in the air as the hook came loose.
I had three good looks at that fish and it was every inch a Tyee, looking to be mid-thirties or better.
I wanted to weep and wail but Dano took it really well and was stoked to have actually hooked another fish in the pool this year.
Perhaps he summed it up best when he said, "At least we don't have to get all messy cleaning a fish now, and that was fun."
Sure................................sure........................................and it WAS fun.........................................but damn.
I so wanted to see him ring the bell.
Take care.