Wow, what a morning! The trap lit up big time at first light. And Red Hot was right in middle of it. It was a real feeding frenzy out there for about an hour between 4:30 - 5:30 am. I lost count how many fish I had to the boat during that hour, I'd say at least 10-12. A few double headers when I did finally get two lines in at the time. It was crazy. All shallow, most between 27 and 37 feet, all on anchovies. Springs, sockeyes and coho. Ended up with 2 springs at about 11 and 16 lbs. Lost another screamer spring due to a broken leader - and I even sacrificed the only hatch coho I had all day for it - was playing the coho beside the boat trying to see if there is an adipose fin or not - plyers in hand. While the coho is still doing cartwheels as I am holding the leader in my hand I see the other rod doing two big dips and then the reel screams. I knew this was a good spring and I quit playing with the coho and just as I pop the hook out and the coho swims away I see it was clipped. Oh well, the unfortunate part is though that I lost this spring after a good 5 minute battle - big head shakes and then the leader was see-sawed through. I think because it took me so long to get to that rod the spring probably had the anchovie completely inhaled and the leader was right between his sharp teeth.
After 5:30 it slowed right down and I had only a few more sporadic bites - a few smaller springs and a couple more coho and one real nice sock - probably pushing 10 lbs. Fish moved then a little deeper down. But that first hours was unforgettable! Only 2 or 3 other boats out that early and they were into fish too as far as I had time to look up. Back home well before noon!
