Gear down at about 7:00AM just south of the Mukilteo ferry terminal. Went with conventional wisdom and put down pink mini -squids with one hook about 20" behind "old school" Abe and Al dodgers. Trolled south with the falling tide at 35 feet to start. Got into action immediately. And shortly determined that the problem would not be getting hits...it would be scoring runs. My son and I had a terrible time putting a fish in the net to start. We probably weren't going 1 for 4.

Finally I did a serious game change: single hooks were switched out with double hooks and I started taking the boat out of gear to fight each fish. I know that's against traditional practice but I am not one of the guys who can run a boat, crank up a downrigger and then net the fish. I also feel that the extra drag on the fish pulls out a fair number of hooks.

In any case, things went better after that. Decided to quit with 6 fish since I'm not sure how many pinks I want this year. We trolled south from the ferry terminal for about 1/2 mile, then pulled the gear and ran back to the ferry dock again. Started at 35' and went down as far as 70. Quit at 10AM...should have been done by 8:30!

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