I’ve had 13 year old boy (Christopher) and girl (Odessa) twins here for the week. We went fishing the day they got in, caught a coho, had it for dinner, and they were hooked on fishing. Are we going fishing tomorrow is the question each evening. We stayed at our cabin a few days, and the day it was too windy to fish, we picked berries. Most years, the island is covered in blueberries and blue huckleberries, with red huckleberries here and there. This year, red huckleberries are the only game in town, and we picked for a couple hours til we had enough for a batch of jam. We caught 4 big coho the next day and butchered and vac packed those back at the house. We also caught some huge dungeness crab – my first decent catch of the season – and had those for dinner. These kids are lucky.
The next 3 days we went to Chatham Strait. There’s a new ADNR cabin there I’d rented from Mon to Wed. We got an early start as the kids wanted to get fishing. We arrived at my spot at about high tide at 8 am or so. I put the first rod out, and as I was rigging the second rod, we got a coho on. Odessa reeled it in, and I put that rod back out. As I was getting the second rod ready to go, the first rod hit again. This happened at least a third time. The rest of the fish were shaker kings, though, so we were still on the first coho when I finally got the second rod out. The kids got to fighting over who was driving and who was fishing as we got on fish after fish. We caught a dozen cohos and a nice white king, over the next several hours. By early afternoon, I’d filled one of the coolers with dressed coho and ice, and we were ready to go find our cabin across the strait. I texted their mom. Time to get a freezer, which she did the next day.
We found the cabin and got ourselves settled in. The kids love salmon so we had fried salmon and venison pepper pieces for dinner with instant potatoes and beach asparagus. It was supposed to blow the next day, so we were sort of expecting a cabin day on Tuesday. We did try to fish for about 30 minutes, but it was too rough, so back to the cabin. Odessa was tormenting her brother, and then me, and I put my rain gear on and went looking for some berries to pick. The weather picked up as predicted, and I had to move the boat twice over the next 12 hours. The kids made dinner with bagels and cream cheese and jarred smoked salmon.
Today, we slept in and packed up as the winds laid down. We headed back to our fishing hole, and the crossing was a little lumpy. Both kids were a little sea sick, so I said we’ll just fish the drag from one end to the other and pick up and go and they agreed to that. We got 3 more nice coho, and headed for home.
The kids are constantly bickering over 13 year old things, but the twins sure do make a good work team. I filleted and sectioned the fish, Odessa rinsed the pieces, Christopher put the fish into bags, and when I was done butchering, I started vac packing. When Odessa was done with the rinsing, she took over vac packing. They are good workers. And good fishing companions. Mom gets here tomorrow for the next three days then they will all leave together.