We headed out Friday night for Neah Bay with our halibut fishing reservations aboard the "Wind Song" secured. After a lengthy wait for the ferry and a long drive along a winding road along the Northern Coast of Washington we arrived at Neah Bay, the most North Western city of the lower 48. We checked in with Neah Bay charters and paid the balance of our fishing charter, ate, slept and awoke at the appropriate time. Upon arriving at the "Wind Song," ready to board, we found out that the "Wind Song" was down with mechanical problems. Aargh! Every other charter in Neah Bay was filled so we checked the regs, made some calls, jumped in the truck and made a beeline for Westport in hopes of securing a charter for Sunday morning.

Upon arriving in Westport we checked with all of the major charters immediately, no openings were found. The last charter we checked with had just started operating this year with a couple of older, more experienced boats. They had openings! We signed up, ate, slept and awoke at the appropriate time Sunday morning. We boarded the "Blue Water" on time and ready to go. After a short delay the skipper had the "Blue Water" headed out the bar and charging up the coastline for the halibut grounds. Two people puked along the way. Four hours later we arrived and began to fish, it was slow fishing. We were fishing in water over four hundred feet deep so it took a while to get our gear to the bottom and even longer to get it back to the surface. The boat was using an older style of line, dacron, many lines broke as fish were being brought in. For just a little bit more money they should of had the newer "tuff line." The cheap bugger!

Despite the difficulties encountered, Robyn and I landed three ling cod and one halibut of 42 pounds, the biggest "but" on the boat! There were only six halibut caught amongst the 12 customers so we feel very fortunate. The water conditions were among the smoothest we have ever encountered at Westport. The sun peaked out from time to time, enough for each of us to receive a tan. While heading back to Westport, a tiny bird landed in the boat, he flew right into the cabin landing on the skippers hat. That was pretty cool to see.

I'll try Neah Bay again sometime in the distant future but it'll probably be with my own boat. That's just too far of a drive to come up "snake eyes!" We ended up driving just shy of 500 miles that weekend for a nice "but" and three nice ling cod.

Semper Fisherman

---