Well after waiting for two days while the “November gales in August” blew through, we headed for Muir today. And what an absolutely extraordinary day it proved to be!! We dropped the gear about 6:45am and not much happened for the first two hours, except we released one undersized chinook that may have made 45 cm but we did not check. Then at 8:45am we had a huge hit in an area of Muir we do not usually get bites. Two or three good runs later we boated a fat beauty of 78cm, 17lb.
Down went the gear again and at 9:15am in the same place the same rod went off again. I struck and the fish began to fight and at that moment someone else in a boat passing in the opposite direction on that side, yelled “Hey double header!! and pointed at us. I half turned in time to see my wife dive on the other rod and now chaos ensued. While the guys in the passing boat were now hooting and a hollerin’, the fish on the rod my wife held then went on a powerful run and crossed our lines. We managed to sort that out and after a couple of minutes my fish was getting closer to the boat and my wife’s was slowing down. So she put the rod in the holder on the now opposite side and we proceed to eventually boat my fish. He measured at 85cm so damn! back he went and away he swam. The other rod in the holder was now completely slack and we thought he must have gone for sure. Incredibly, as I tightened up, I felt a bouncing jag and unbelievably he was still on! We then proceed to fight this guy in and managed to boat him as well. Unfortunately he was measured at 84cm, so back he went too, swimming powerfully down. How ironic that the biggest double header we have ever had, was in the year when the 80cm maximum was introduced!!
(Based on the weight of the one we kept they must have both been close to 20lb each.)
Another 30 minutes later, another hit on that lucky rod that brought the second of the double header in and this guy went on two runs but he began to head shake hard near the boat and the hooked popped. He looked close to the 80cm but we will never know if he was above or inside the slot!
No more hits for a couple of hours, except for another undersize one, then close to lunch time in the same productive area we had been so fortunate to find, we had a bouncing hit on the “hot" rod again and this time we boated a nice bar-b-cue size 9lb keeper. So time to head home.
So 7 fish, two under-sized, two over the 80cm limit (double header!), two in the slot and one lost. Truly a day to remember.
All fish came to small herring in t.h. fished at 60’ in water 80-100’ deep.
Photo below and the 17lb fish turned out to be a white.
View attachment 55583
