My first trip to the Hoh for salmon was kind of a weird one.

On the way over I saw the northern lights, the only time I've ever seen them (the actual lights, that is ) in Washington.

Ten minutes I later I absolutely annihilated a deer in my Ford Tempo between Beaver and Forks, I won't say how fast I was going. Lesson learned...

Arrived at lower river in perfect time to hit the river at first light....fell asleep waiting for the sun to come up. Woke up in a hurry and glanced at my spinning reel and thought, 'yep, just enough line left to be able to make a few casts.' (Rookie!)

Of course there were twelve dudes fishing in the hole right by the trail so I figured I'd hike up a bit and try to find a different hole. A mile of brush buckin' later I come to decent hole with just my buddy around. As we walked up to the hole I saw a huge king jump on the other side of the river...

So using every bit of line my spinning reel would let me, I cast to the other side of the river...sure enough, first cast fish-on! Only this fish wasn't happy about having a hook in its face and in about ten minutes I watched the last wraps of line on my reel drag off of the spool...

I headed back through the brush to the car for more line (dummy!), my buddy steps in behind me and just pounds the crud out of the same spot to no avail. When I got back from trekking, my buddy moved down into the tailout and I cast back to the same spot, Bang!, another fish on.

That one got landed and bonked.

Later that day, one hole up I hooked the line that broke on the first fish, tried fruitlessly to tie the two lines together and lost the fish again...

Two casts, two fish on and not so much as a single Dolly Varden the rest of the three day trip....

Weird.

Sounds like your trip turned out to be pretty good.

Here's another one, until earlier today I had never told a single this person story, butt, since the cat's out of the bag...

Normally I'd say I have top notch spatial awareness...

...but occasionally for whatever reason I lose track of space and time, lapsing into a sort of vertiginous trance...

A few years ago I hiked about two miles into the middle of nowhere to fish on a river where I knew there was absolutely no one else. While I was fishing, I started to percolate. All of the sudden it was do or doo...

So I started running for the nearest blowdown not twenty feet away, when I got there the shorts were off and I was letting fly in like three seconds, shorts are good for that.

After I had sacrificed another t shirt pocket to the poop gods, I looked down and to my horror I had just shat directly into my pants...

I coulda just kept fishin and dropped a load directly where I was standing fer crissakes....



**sorry for the bathroom humor**

So why is it you fish alone? :p

zing!

That's one I left off the 'Why you don't want to fish with me' thread...

Someone's got to have another story to add to this thing, it can even be (NPR), not poop related....

This last Sunday I was to meet two other guys at 4am to go to PtD. I hooked the Explorer to the boat and pulled out from the boat port at 3:50am and noticed a fender clearance light was out. So I went to change it with the lights on so I could see, the positive wire hit the fender, arced, and shorted the converter box leaving me no running lights. I then had to park the boat in the street since the driveway is too sloped to leave the boat and get the truck hooked up and swap all the gear. I am leaving the driveway at 4:15 am as my wife is looking out the window because the "new guy" called the house to make sure I hadn't forgot to wake up. Last time he'll do that!!

We get to Pt. D, and out by 5:30, perfect! We get a huge takedown an hour later, give the rod to the "new guy" and the fish pulls a few times and is lost. (TIP UP, TIP UP!) We go in to drop one guy off at the ramp at 9:30, and so on the way back out I decide to drop my new crab pot over at Quarter Master Harbor. Just bought it the day before. I put a new down rigger ball in the trap for weight and off we go to fish. After trolling for about 5 more hours with nothing but dogfish, we decide to call it a day. Go to get the crab trap, grap the float with the hook, the hook opens the .99c snap link that connects the rope and the rope promptly sinks to the bottom-it is properly weighted just like the regs require. $50 on the bottom. OK, lesson learned. Don't use cheesy hardware. I can only laugh and we go take the boat out.

On the way home, the alternator on the truck is not charging, and the truck dies in the driveway, thank God! A wire had come off. I decide yesterday to try to recover the crap trap by dragging ropes with grappling type hooks on the downriggers, hoping to snag the rope-I remember about where it was. Setting out a downrigger, and cable snaps and another ball is on the bottom. We make many passes in perfectly calm water, and do not snag the trap. Drug some other guys trap about 50 feet or so, but do not find mine. So we decide to fish for the last hour of light to no avail. Upon arriving home, the truck is dead again. Wire came loose, thanks to DOT for the rough assed roads.

So, total looses include a $40 wire harness on the Explorer, about $60 in crab trap, rope, cheesy hardware and two DR balls.

To top it all off moles are tearing up the yard, keep foiling my traps, the little *******s!!

Get out to pine lake about 4 am... start unloading my gear... (i dont park at the park itself)... Gee, why is it that this side of the pontoon seems lopsided? OHHHH cause the OTHER side is flat!

It's been about two weeks since I've been on the water... Maybe someday soon I can get the courage to venture back out again.

Curtis