Fishin'

After the trips to Forks and vicinity, we got down to business.  We took about a week to go to the Westport area for some fishing and hunting.  The last time I went salmon fishing was in the late 1980's with my crew from Boeing and my ex-wife.  That was a good trip, with the boat limiting on Silvers.  Unfortunately, salmon fishing on the Washington coast has gone downhill since the early 1970's, with reduced numbers of fish and quotas allowed to be caught.  I had read that this year and next were to be the best King salmon seasons in 40 years due to ocean conditions.  So, we decided to head to the coast for Chinook.  Jana found a nice private campground in Tokeland, right on the water.  Dakota, Colton, and I got up way to early (as far as the boys were concerned), and headed into Westport, and Deep Sea Charters.  We had booked spots on the charter boat Slammer.  We headed out and started catching some fish.

Not too sure about getting up when it's still dark...

The seas were great.  No one got sick.  Would have been great at that point.  However, turns out that Dakota and I both limited on Kings.  Colton had one up to the surface that threw the hook.  In the end, the boat limited out, allowing all three of us to take home 2 Kings.  Not too shabby

Nine Kings

That's a funny looking plant...

 

Lots o fish

I enjoyed myself so much, I decided to book a bottom fishing trip two days later.  This gave me the opportunity for some bear hunting on the day in between.  Saw a couple of deer, but no bear.  I did stumble into a marijuana grow, which I reported to the local narcotics task force for eradication.  The next day, I got up bright and early for bottom fishing.  The boys got to sleep in.  I'd never been bottom fishing, and didn't really know what to expect.  Expect FUN!  Wow!  You are allowed to take ten rockfish and two Lingcod.  What a blast!  We started out a little later than we left when salmon fishing.  It was actually less work than the salmon fishing, and I think that it would be a little easier for Colton.  It was a pretty steady stream of fish coming over the gunwales.  Early on I had a problem with catching a prohibited species.  They are a prohibited species due to being overfished.  I just kept catching them.  You can't keep them, and must throw them back, where they normally die floating away from the boat.  You can't keep them.  I was actually getting quite frustrated, but eventually started catching black rockfish.  I even managed to catch my two Lingcod before we went fishing for Lingcod.  I'd never used live bait before.  We used anchovies for the rockfish, and halibut for the Lingcod.  Will definitely be taking the boys next year for bottom fish.  I spent a serious amount of time processing and seal a mealing fish.  We still have plenty of fish in the freezer.  Next year I'm getting Jana to go.

Olympic Peninsula Summer

Odd, but we'd never really spent much time there, unless you count the Grays Harbor and Ocean Shores areas.  For camping, as opposed to overnighting on trips, we generally like to stay in state and NFS campgrounds.  I'd actually checked over the last couple of years finding that there wasn't really much for our 36 foot motorhome in those places on the Peninsula.  So, I guess maybe it wasn't that odd that we hadn't been there.  Anyway, we finally broke down and picked out some private resorts instead of campgrounds. 








This coincided nicely with Micaela's desire to take a couple of friends to Forks, WA.  Forks as in the home of the Twilight series of books and movies.  Didn't do much for me, but what the heck...

Third trip to "Twilight" town this summer.  My manhood finally crushed.

   We spent many evenings in Port Angeles, on the Straight of Juan De Fuca.  We were able to find a bowling alley that was actually reasonably priced, and had a couple of nights of fun there.  Port Angeles afforded us the opportunity to enter Olympic National Park, and head up to Hurricane Ridge.  Once again another place that we had never been.  It was quite nice.  The area is a ridge in the park featuring alpine meadows and incredible views including the Olympic Mountains, Straight of Juan De Fuca, and Vancouver Island.  Also the home of some of the tamest deer around.

Looking southwest from above Hurricane Ridge

North from above Hurricane Ridge.  Straight of Juan De Fuca and Vancouver Island in the distance.  Yes, that's snow on the ground in mid July...

Told you they were pretty tame.

The campground in La Push was in a very nice location and had great hook-ups, but was a little different.  it was right on the water, with a great beach.  The kids had a great time collecting polished glass from the beach.  Next time we'll need to bring fishing gear to catch some of the surf perch that were being landed.

Colton and Dad on the beach.

However, there were quite a few people and dogs just wandering around through the RV park.  Just different...  Stay tuned.

Confuser is back

The computer is back, and almost all of my photos survived and are now backed up.  Actually, everything before this past April was already backed up, just the summer stuff wasn't.  Gotta be more on the ball about that.  Hopefully get some more stuff posted before our hunting trip this coming weekend.

Taking the "Dirt Nap"

I shut my laptop down the other night, and it was working fine.  I tried to start it up yesterday and it's done.  Hard drive is dead.  Second time in eight months.  HP laptops are "crappola".  Coton's is also dead right now.  If we hadn't bought them at Costco with their two year warranty, none of our three HPs would have lasted 6 months.  Never again will I buy an HP product.  Anyways, I need to come up with some spare cash to recover this summer's photos, which I had not yet backed up.  So no more posts for a bit...

Daroga State Park

I know...  I had never heard of it either.  Very nice campground on the Columbia River, just south of Chelan.  A little windy in the evenings, but otherwise nice.  It made a nice base camp in June when we sent the kids to their Aunt & Uncle's place in Colorado.  Janae and I took a week and went RVing.  We went to Chelan, Grand Coulee, and Stehekin.  We had a really poor, long, wet winter and spring around Buckley, and this was a really nice change.  Mid 80's all week.  Well, the first day, was tough, but we got used to it by the second or third day.  I spent a great deal of time shirtless.  Oddly enough, and Janae tells me it was a coincidence, the number of bigfoot sightings in the area tripled that week... 
We spent one day traveling Lake Chelan to the small town of Stehekin.  Very nice place in the North Cascades, very close to the National Park.  Had a great time there seeing the sights and having lunch.  On the trip back downlake, we saw deer, mountain goats, and a bear.  A day later, we drove east toward the coulees.  We drove through several state parks including Steamboat Rock, Sun Lakes, and Bridgeport.  I envied the people fishing on Banks Lake.  And of course we made the customary trip to the Grand Coulee Dam.  What a great time we had without the kids (sorry guys).  I had been raised on camping trips to Alta Lake State Park on the eastside.  To be honest, it's a hell-hole.  One hundred degree temperatures.  Sand at the beach so hot you can't walk on it, rattlesnakes...  How we survived as kids I don't know.  In the last few years I've finally discovered some of the other parks east of the Cascades, finding them very nice.  We will be hitting more of them in the future.  But, our summer was only beginning, and I was still to face my final emasculation...  Stay tuned.

Bad Tom!

Have I been bad, or what?  All summer without a post...  I'm soooooo sorry.  Working nights again has messed me up.  Typically, I get home at 3am or so, and grab some Z-time.  I get up after not nearly enough sleep and finish loading the motorhome, and off we go.  To make it a long enough trip, we don't come home until my monday.  Typically this summer, we've arrived home in time for me to unload critical items, park the motorhome, shower, change, and head off to work until 3am.  As is normal during the summer, my work days are 14 to 15 hours, not leaving much time for this blog!  Will work on it the next couple of days, when I'll be home without working.

March 2010 Twanoh State Park

This weekend was out first outing of 2010. We saddled up and headed across the Tacoma Narrows to the Hood Canal. I don't think I've stayed there since I was a child with Mom and Dad. Definitely our first family outing there. We stayed at Twanoh State Park on the south side of the canal. I remembered that there were supposed to be lots of oysters, and a quick check of the WDF&W website confirmed this. Wow, there were a lot of them. I had remarked to the family that I couldn't promise anything because the low tides weren't very low, but we'd give it a try. Even with not so low, low tides it was like walking on a carpet of oysters! So, finding the oysters was no problem, but I had no experience shucking them. I do now, and my hands show it. I forgot that you are supposed to use gloves while shucking, and therefore didn't have any. Those black things covering the oysters are mussels... Sharp mussels... Oh, and barnacles, joy! My left hand got all tore up while holding the oysters and trying to insert an oyster knife with my right. It took about two limits (36 oysters) before I kinda got the hang of it. By the time I finished shucking Dakota's limit yesterday, I felt semi-proficient. Fried oysters Friday evening, and oyster stew when we got home this evening. We still have 18 in the fridge that I'll fix in the next couple of days. Unfortunately in Washington you must shuck the oysters on the beach leaving the shells there. So no barbecued oysters. Did I mention the weather? Beautifully sunny and warm on Friday and Saturday. Not too bad for having picked this weekend about a month ago, if I do say so myself... The kids had a great time. Colton had to explore the tide flats, finding crabs and eels among other things. Micaela took lots of photos to throw on her Facebook page. And even Dakota managed to have some fun, while handing me oysters to shuck. Dakota even found he likes old John Wayne movies. Go figure, The Duke!? He watched several on his bunk LCD screen last night. Weird. All in all a pretty good weekend spent together. Unfortunately, I work for the next five weekends. Man, that's a long time until we can depart on another adventure!