Fishing Olalla

Saturday morning Chris and I loaded the kayaks on the car and headed out for an adventure. We took the ferry from Fauntleroy (about 1/2 mile from our house) to Southworth. We then followed some back road south to Al's gas station in Olalla, WA.

We put in the kayaks in Olalla Bay and headed out into the sound for some fishing. From the bay we peddled north along the beach until we came to a grouping of houses. That is where the fun began.

We ran into a huge school of cutthroats that were itching to bit. We each caught and released at least 8.

After a while we decided to head back to the car. Along the way I decided to troll for a bit. We had seen some huge silvers jumping on our way out and I thought I might be able to get one to bit, by chance. All of a sudden I had a huge strike and I was sure I'd enticed one so I set my hook and began to turn my kayak to fight the fish. As I turned I saw something that made my heart stop. It wasn't a fish that took my lure, it was a bird.

Needless to say I freaked out. I didn't know what to do and I began to panic. I started yelling for Chris and at the same time let the line out of my reel almost the entire way. I had so many fish just fling my lure out of their mouths that day, since of course we use barbless hooks, that I was hoping the bird would do the same thing.

No such luck.

Finally Chris caught up to me, told me to get as close as possible as I could to the bird, reeling in, and then cut my line.

So I did that. I got within about 5 feet of the bird, cut my line, and cried. I still feel pretty awful about the whole thing. Think I'll take some time off from fishing for a while.

On a brighter note, Olalla was beautiful. You can view my pictures (no bird pictures!) here: Olalla Fishing.