I went out with my seven year old daughter, trying to recreate the success I had a week and a half ago. Launched at Shilshole at 7, thinking the derby rush would be past, but the launch was still a zoo. It didn't help that it was a minus tide right when we launched, so there were precious few slots on the floats.

Fished Meadow Point for a half hour, but didn't see a single net waving among the hundred or so boats. Considered West Point, but opted for Jeff Head. Got there to join about 50 other boats, and saw a lot of bait. Not like last time, but a lot of herring.

I had my lucky piscator flasher and green/glo coho killer, and got one nice fish on after an hour or so - looked like a nice 10+ pound greenback silver. Between me and my seven year old, we didn't get him netted soon enough, and he broke the hook off the lure. I was kicking myself for that because 1) I had seen the broken solder joint where the hook connects and neglected to rerig it, and 2) I didn't notice that the hook was gone until later, and fished with a hookless coho killer for a couple hours. I kept seeing the line come off the rigger, but never managed to get the fish hooked - DUH!

We had pretty much given up (and I had finally noticed the broken lure and switched to a green/blue coho fly) and we started fishing our way across the channel on our way home. I kept lowering the gear as we got into deeper water, and halfway across the line popped off the rigger (130 feet) and we ended up with a nice 6-7 pound hatchery hen coho in the box. Nothing after that as we fished our way back to Shilshole. That fish was mighty tasty.

Nice to see enforcement out there, on such a crowded day. They checked me, first because my daughter was under a blanket and they thought I was fishing with two rods, then they asked if I had any fish (presumably they woulda checked species and made sure I had recorded it promptly), and asked about hooks (I showed them the pliers in my pocket and assured them that they were pinched). Fish checker at the ramp said we were about average, with a fish to a fish and a half per boat.

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