Early Fishing Trips: Part 1

OK, as I mentioned previously, I would like to tell some stories.  I have yet to find my style or tone, so I'm just going to start and we'll discover those things together.

Some of my favorite time spent with my dad was fishing, out on the ocean.  He purchased a used diving boat and outfitted it to fish commercially off the central coast of California for salmon. That boat was the slowest vessel in the Pacific ocean, but it caught some big salmon.  Dad installed 'hand-cranker' down rigger cables, to which we snapped leaders on at 3 fathom (18 feet) intervals and trolled through the water dragging 3 to 10 leaders per side, depending on the depth of the water we were fishing in.  We trolled along at about 3 miles per hour and the top speed of the boat was only about 6 mph.  Sailboats move faster than that.

The first summer we fished, my dad was the 'captain', my brother was the 'deck hand', I was the 'navigator', and my sister was 'balast'.  What that meant was, my brother's job was to net the salmon, I steered the boat when a fish was being fought, and my sister slept all day in the cabin. We were a well oiled fishing team. There were also many times when friends of my dad would go fishing and fill in on netting duty.  In that case, I think I became additional balast and my brother became the navigator.  Either way, I got to go out on the boat.

The salmon would bite the hook at the end of a leader and shake it hard trying to get away.  The shaking translated through the leader to the down-rigger cable to a spring at the end of the outrigger  arm that you could see shaking from the deck.  When we saw that a fish was on the line, dad would crank the 'gurdy' and lift the cable and leaders up to the boat.  As each leader came to the surface they would be unsnapped from the cable and placed at the back of the boat.  When the leader with the fish surfaced, things got interesting.

Dad would leave the leader attached to the cable and fight the fish by pulling the leader in by hand until the fish could be netted or gaffed.  Some of the salmon were over 30 pounds after they were cleaned and ready for the fish buyer, so it took some finesse and grip strength to coax the fish up near enough to the boat to net it.

After that first summer my brother stopped going out on the boat because he seemed intent on demonstrating the boats name sake, 'Technicolor Yawn', on each trip out of the harbor.  Yes, the boat was named Technicolor Yawn. If you are not clear on the euphemism, just think about boats, the wavy ocean, and what happens if you don't get along with those actions.

Inauspicious Beginnings

I'd like to think I'm capable of writing something interesting, however, my output has been so limited and sparse it is difficult to even consider myself a writer at all.  

In an effort to shake the cobwebs out of the creative wheelhouse and begin the process of telling stories it was suggested a 'blog' might be a good way to get started.  Commence stretching the writing 'muscle', as it were.  What I would like to see on this blog is a growing collection of short stories about my life experiences, things that I have lived and things I have witnessed; i.e. fishing, cars, creative projects, and whatever else comes to mind.  

If anybody reads them, so much the better.  Hopefully, the stories will have content that paint word pictures clear enough  for someone other than me to see in their own mind's eye. I'll try to be interesting, honest, and with a bit of humor wherever it fits.

Well, this is an inauspicious beginning, but it is a start!  If I can start something new, anybody can.  Maybe you have something in mind you would like to try.  There is no better time than right now.