Franz I have gone back into our conversations on this site and originally you did book a 4 hour morning salmon trip as listed here and mentioned halibut fishing with your young boys.  I replied by letting you know that the 4 hour trips are salmon only as there isn’t enough time to run to the halibut fishing spots and is the reason why halibut trips are a minimum 6 hours andthe hourly rate is more than a 6 hour salmon trip.  (running farther distances uses way more fuel so costs are higher)  Those halibut spots are also outside of the protection of the Washington Coast in Juan De Fuca Strait and therefore water conditions can be much different than further inside where we fish salmon.  When water conditions further out are marginal I have to make a judgement call based on my experience.  If you didn’t have your 3 and 5 year old kids with you that may have swayed me to take a chance and go for it.  I didn’t want their first fishing experience to be a real negative one.  As far as not pulling fish out of the water to take pictures.  I watch other people pull otherwise healthy salmon out of the water by net, then onto the deck of the boat, struggle to unwrap them from hooks tangled in the net and in the fish…..then lift them up while someone fiddles with their phone to snap pics.  Most of those fish suffer significant scale and protective slime loss and already being under stress don’t survive the handling.  If I’m mandated to release fish….my goal is to release it unharmed and in a condition it can recover quickly and not become easy prey to seals or sea lions in the area.  I always allow clients to take photos of the fish along the side of the boat while it is on the surface just before turning the hooks.  I know this may not make some people happy as they want to hold the fish for a pic….if you are reading this and are one of those people you know I’m not your guide.  I won’t apologize for this policy as my goal is to see these fish numbers recover quickly so that we can return to a normal catch and keep fishery sooner than later.

Franz I have gone back into our conversations on this site and originally you did book a 4 hour morning salmon trip as listed here and mentioned halibut fishing with your young boys.  I replied by letting you know that the 4 hour trips are salmon only as there isn’t enough time to run to the halibut fishing spots and is the reason why halibut trips are a minimum 6 hours andthe hourly rate is more than a 6 hour salmon trip.  (running farther distances uses way more fuel so costs are higher) ... More