Surprise

Remember us? Well we are still here. I would try and catch you up on everything thats been going on but that seems to be a bit overwhelming, so we are just going to talk about some salmon fishing if thats okay. So many people say that a boat is a money pit, or that you buy a boat and only use it s few times. Well people that is NOT the case in our family. Im pretty sure our boat has been out every week (sometimes two times) since we brought her home. 

Like I said earlier we are going to be talking about a salmon trip for this post. My dear sweet husband has been on what we like to call "a sick one" which means that he is all about the salmon fishing right now. Well the other weekend he got a text from one of his co-workers that the bite was on up at Fort Bragg. I guess he was fishing Friday morning and got limits (two salmon per person) in two hours. Well this sounded to good to be true! So we decided that Sunday afternoon we would drive up to Fort Bragg, spend the night and having a early day of fishing on Monday.

Zac did a little research and found us a campsite. He also found out that the tide was going to be super low so he thought it would be best to put the boat in a slip the night before and then in the morning we could head out without having to launch the boat.  Sunday was a busy afternoon, it took us almost 3 hours to drive to Fort Bragg. Then we had to get the boat launched and in the slip, set up our campsite and also take Huddy to the beach so he would be nice and tired for our morning of fishing. We finally got most of our to do's done and we were able to stop for a beautiful dinner that looked out onto the sunset. Both of us were very excited and talking about our game plan for the next morning. 

The morning could not come soon enough! Especially because our camp neighbors were up all night! I think I finally heard them shut up at about 4:30am…and our alarm clock went off at 5:30am. Lets just say I did not feel bad about making noise packing up camp! I was surprised that it wasn't foggy, I was planning on not being able to see the blue sky but low and behold there it was! The only thing about that sunny weather…is that is means it will be windy and choppy out on the ocean. Luckily, we didn't have to go out to far AND supposedly we would be done fishing in about two hours. We stopped at Dennys for some breakfast and then it was off to the boat.

We got the boat all ready to go. We were just pushing off when an older gentleman told us that the tide was super low out! Zac and I had already discussed this so I thought, its cool…we know! So we started to head down the river out to the ocean. We were both pretty excited to get our there. Down the river we went…nice and easy…when all the sudden aksjdkahkfjhskjdfh (Thats my noise for our rudder hitting the bottom). I asked Zac "What was that!?" He answered "Thats us hitting the bottom". We moved forward a little but with that same scraping sound. Finally Zac stopped the boat. We were stuck….STUCK! My heart sank. Im pretty sure every emption hit me, well maybe not the good emotions. But I was scared, anxious, nervous and embarrassed! Zac tried to move a few more times but were were stuck. The rudder was in the mud. I was flipped out. After talking things through Zac said that the tide would be back up in about two hours, enough for us to be floating again. TWO HOURS!? We are sitting here for TWO HOURS!? I just wanted to curl up in a ball and wake up when it was over. Talk about anxiety! After giving Zac a few different suggestions for getting us out of the situation he finally took one of mine up. He got out into the water (bless his heart) and wiggled the back of the boat till it actually freed up. He then moved to the front of the boat with some rope and started to pull us. It was actually working! I don't know if the tide had come in a tiny bit more or God had answered my prayer but we were actually moving! We finally made it to a place that was "deep enough" (which was still to shallow) to actually get the motor going. No wonder we saw no other boats going out. Anyways, so that was an exciting way to start our morning! Thankfully Huddy did SO well! This was his very first time in our ocean boat…and in the ocean for that matter. When we were stuck I just pulled out a bully stick for him to chew on and boy am I happy we had that for him.

Well we probably made it our to our fishing grounds and started fishing around 9:00am. Not to long after that I had the first bite! It was pretty exciting but I ended up snapping the line when I got it to the boat. The water was pretty choppy and there were quite a few boats out there. Before we knew it we started catching fish! Zac caught the first two while I was driving the boat. It was quite the ordeal to fish with only two people. Zac would grab the rod then I would run out and reel up the down rigger, then run back and steer the boat, then run back and grab the net and net the fish….then run back to steer the boat! We made it work though. So anyways, Zac caught the first two fish and it was my turn to catch my limits. I must say that those salmons put up one hell of a fight. My last one that caught I would get him up to the boat and then he would take off running…or swimming I should say. I think he did that 3 times before we got him in the boat! So much fun! When we checked the clock again it was 11:00am. Limits in 2 hours. Thats a fish every 30 minutes. Not to bad! Zac was thinking we could go rock fishing but with the water getting even more choppy I was ready to head in. I must say Hudson did great in the boat. He stayed out of our way and only ate one anchovy! 

We were both pretty happy with our fishing trip. Plus the tide was up so no getting stuck on the way back to the boat launch.  Well thats my fishing trip story. We did so well that a week later Zac went back out to Fort Bragg with a buddy and caught limits again! Needless to say we have a lot of salmon right now. I am going to bring in a bunch to my co-workers!