Biggest Loser

So, my friend Ben tells me he caught 3 kings on a yellow coho spoon on a flat line behind his boat.   Jeff calls and says lets go fishing in the morning.  I say okay.   I need to be at work at 7.  I fix two of the yellow coho spoons up from my old troll gear, and Jeff picks me up at 4am.  At 430 am, Jeff gets a bump on his gear, and while I look at his rod, there goes mine.  A nice king on the yellow spoon with an 8 oz sinker and 20 pulls of line out. We land the king.  Nice bright one.   About 15 lbs or so.  I’m bellowing with joy.  We plan a barbecue at our house for Thursday as everyone has the Friday holiday off.    We’re the only ones fishing.   We watch another skiff with a couple come in.  They catch 2 kings out in the deep where we got ours.  At 6:15, Jeff says ready to go?  I say let’s fish till 630, which would allow us to troll back to the boat launch.  I figure I have to clean the fish anyway, and can get to work at 730 instead and just take a half hour for lunch.  As we near the boat launch, there’s a big swirl next to the boat.  A big seal is after our king salmon hanging on the stringer over the side. I see the fish is still there, and pull the stringer.  Jeff has the boat brush to bang the seal if he can.  I pull on the stringer.  The seal has the king salmon’s tail.  And pulls the line through the gill cover, and slowly sinks with the fish out of sight.  I tell Jeff.  Even when we catch a fish – which rarely happens, even when everyone else is catching – we can’t get it to the dock.  We are such Losers.    We reel in.  As we trailer up the boat, Jeff says “you’re right.  We really are Losers”  We ride home in silence.  I still made it to work at 7 am.

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