Well the boat made it to the lake today. First off, the captain forgot to double check the drain plug. It was in but not good enough. We got it off the trailer ok and I took the car and trailer to the parking area. The first mate didn't notice the water filling up.
Some kindly boaters assisted draining the boat for us so it all turned out well even though the boat winch line broke when I was trying to pull the boat out before it sunk. They had one of those super squirt cannons that actually did a fairly good job. Besides the winch line, I also broke one of the wooden rails the boat loads up on. Someone made them out of redwood. I think I'll go with oak when I replace it. I may get a new winch that uses a strap instead of a rope also,
Besides all the preliminary mishaps the rest of the day was fantastic. The first mate almost fell overboard trying to land a 14" chinook salmon. She holds the biggest fish of the day award for that one but gets the smallest fish of the day for a bass she caught in a favorite cove of mine. As for me, I landed a couple respectable chinooks and a pretty nice bass. Our secret is Night Crawlers (shhh). Chinooks here are a "land locked" salmon. They never get to go to the ocean because of the dam.
They actually put up one heck of a fight though for a fish that size. I need to replace the reel I was using because the last fish stripped the gears, Even though I have heavier gear, I like fishing with the light stuff. lot's more of a challenge. Even more a challenge is to try to manuvre a boat and reel in a fish at the same time without getting tangled on the other person's line.
We ended up spending about 10 hours on the lake today. It was hot but we had a nice breeze so you didn't really notice the heat at all. So were both tired now and time to eat leftovers.