Mondo Siuslaw Silvers still Rockin’
Rob & Lisa enjoyed some great salmon fishing landing 8 chromers. Our Sunday trip was high-lighted by a unique, epic battle that these folks will never forget. At one point I talked them into casting spinners. As luck would have it, the gal got a great grab about 4 ft off the boat. The fish went ballistic with an amazing aerial display and several burning runs of 50 ft or more. I backed the boat away from some wood, but eventually the fish got under a log and the Lisa could no longer gain any line. She handed me the rod but I could not free it either as the line was indeed at tensile point. I had to get back on motor so I handed it to her husband Rob. He reefed and reefed while I changed angles. Eventually, to our surprise, it slowly began to move out from under the log and sure enough it suddenly it appeared broadside at the surface about 30 feet away from us. Only problem was, it was in the mouth of a seal. Now the real fight began, as it was game on to try and recover the fish. In all the excitement nobody thought to grab a camera. We tightened down the drag, but still the seal grabbed about 40 more feet of line. It became a tug of war. We would gain 20, he would take 40. We’d recover 30, and he’d strip off another 20. And so it went for about 15 minutes with the seal periodically coming up to breath and each time giving us this look of bewilderment, as if to say ” why won’t you just let me get on with my lunch?” I was foolishly brandishing the net in case we got the seal close enough for a disciplinary bonk on the head with the handle. But to our disbelief, Rob was able to slowly but surely move the entire package very close to the boat, almost straight down. He gave the rod a couple snappy tugs and out of the depths came the fish, sans seal. We had accomplished the unimaginable and had actually won the battle. We quickly motored about 100 feet away to administer resuscitation. To our amazement, the fish had but 1 mark on it’s gill plate and no punctures in it’s body and no blood loss. It responded well to our CPR and swam off on it’s own to continue it’s migration to spawning grounds, indeed dazed but blessed, certainly one lucky Jose. Admittedly, the seal was a juvenile, perhaps 70-75 lbs, but still, I never would have bet on the fish! As Rob commented, “definitely not a good morning for that Siuslaw Silver.” First hooked and played by Lisa, only to be snatched and yarded around by a seal, and finally then towed 100 feet along side a boat! Kind of like being probed & dissected by aliens and then returned to earth. Indeed a “fish story” for the books, but in fact a true tale.
If only we had it on Video. Might have gone viral in the fishing world, but with a lot of beeps in the audio however….. expletives deleted.
