Skunk-Fest part 1. After working out in the islands for almost 3 weeks straight I was going to get out on the water and chase fish 2 days in a row. Sunday at the Bubble with my son in law (his first chinook trip) and then Monday with Randy (RMRAUSCHER) from the website. It appears that I have lost my pull a fish out of the hat, fish catching mojo.

My son in law was right on time and we were rolling at 2:00 Sunday morning. After a quick stop at Holiday Market for a few gallons of non-ethanol we slid off the trailer and had the boat floating by 3:00. Although I had considered heading south to chase resident coho at Kingston I am addicted to hunting chinook and the Bubble won out.

About the time we were leaving the river channel I needed the remote for my autopilot that was locked in the glove box. I shut the main down, pull the key and unlock the glovebox. As I grab the remote, I realize that my fishing license is not in the glove box. Major OH-CRAP, but it was what it was. As I contemplate what else I forgot we continue our cruise in the predawn darkness. Another 10 minutes goes buy and the light goes off, I had also forgot my lure rack. With a sigh I accept the setbacks and continue north to the Bubble. Arriving around 4:00 we were the first boat on station and after a quick check of the regs to make sure the Bubble was open we get to business.

In that my son in law did not have his two-rod endorsement our revised plan was to fish only one rod. Luckily, I had extra gear on board and in a few minutes I had a 3” Goldstar Kingfisher Cookies n Cream spoon ready to go. My experience with the Bubble is that it is a suspended fish show. So we targeted suspended meter marks between 48 and 52‘. We were running a “Chili Pepper” 11” flasher and the Cookies n Cream spoon lathered up with Triple-X herring scented Smelly Jelly. The spoon was running 42” behind the flasher on 30# Seaguar InvizX leader. I usually determine trolling speed by cable angle but our trolling speed varied between 2.4-3.2 MPH.

Although we had solid action most of the morning we ended up going home empty handed. We did release a legal fish thinking that we were limited the 2 fish and didn’t want to waste a limit slot with a smaller fish. We also released a wild fish and a few other shakers. In addition to the intentional releases we lost 3 other fish, one was a slab and popped the hook after a very long run.

In spite of the setbacks and lost fish, the morning was a blast. Brandon got to pull on a few fish and we shared some time on the water. Combine the two and they make for a great Sunday morning!

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