My Sierra Leone friend Andrew caught his first salmon on his own from the beach here last night. We are in the midst of a big coho salmon return to our hatchery (called DIPAC) and the fish are really big this year. Andrew went down the area the fish were milling near the fish ladder at the hatchery. I asked him how fishing was today and here is his email. I’d be hard pressed to tell a better story of why we live here:
“Sorry I was slow to update you because my evening and this morning was very busy. I indeed went to Dipac around 7pm after I picked up Samuel from school activities and stopped by at grandma Pat’s house after another hip surgery. I reached at the beach around 7:15 and met six other people fishing and no one was catching anything. I casted and immediately got one. I was happy because that was my first experience. It took me almost 15 minutes to bring it offshore. I casted again and got a second one. Everyone was surprised I was catching fish while they were not. I struggled again to bring it offshore. I casted for the third time and got other. The third fish gave room to others fishing along side me to catch one each because as I was trying to bring my catch offshore, the fish fought so hard making flips and other fishes started jumping around and the guys standing closed to me casted towards them and got one each. I was so happy for the experience and I planned to go their again on Friday. I cleaned them last night I will bring them for vacuum tomorrow because I’m working tonight.”