By Cameron J. Kirby
“Check those boats up there to port. Are they throwing nets?”
“No, not yet.” I glanced over the boat’s wheel, squinting my eyes at the other fishing boat ahead. “It looks like they’re reeling in to check their bait.”
Chris’ head nodded in concert with the four rod tips he was monitoring—a reassuring pulse on the sub-nautical ballyhoo rigs below.
“I don’t like the look of that,” Chris was looking up at the Garmin nestled in the console. I responded, “Let me get in there.” We deftly switched places at the helm as stalactites of light and color descended across the screen—a spectrum of unease as the motor slowed its churning and our ears again acclimated to the sounds of the wind and water.
“Fish on,” cried Lance as he grabbed a bent rod, an ellipsis trailing off the stern.
We were a mile or so offshore and could see soft hills framing the horizon, drifting between Oregon and Washington in search of Chinook and coho, and ultimately, hoping to fill our freezers. Earlier in the day, we departed the harbor on the Oregon side of the river, and traversed the Columbia River, beyond Buoy 10, past the bar, and through the graveyard of the Pacific, where over 2000 ships have met their ruination and rest below us upon the sea floor.
Our boat, a 27 ft cuddy cabin that we warmly referred to as the John Stamos, plowed through the waves as they relentlessly rolled towards us like hellbent behemoths. Pausing at the pitch, only to plunge us forward at the opportune time, Captain Chris channeled his inner Ahab and navigated the waterway with grim determination—those salmon would be ours, and we were going to limit out.
My brother-in-law Lance was reeling from the stern, several beers deep. He was still sure-footed, like a slightly wobbly mountain goat on a hardscrabble hillside.
“Grab the net,” he called out to my other brother-in-law, Matt.
“You got it, buddy!”
A cacophony of sound erupted off the port side of the hull and avian shrieking suddenly filled our ears as a sea duck breached the waves.
“What the hell is that?!”
“Looks like you’ll have a little turf with your surf.” Matt chuckled.
Are ducks considered “turf?” I mused, as my mind wandered for a brief moment.
“I told you I didn’t like the look of it,” said Chris, glancing back from the wheel.
In his avidity for herring, the sea duck took a dive into the depths at the sight of our baitfish and had become entwined in our braided line, one of his wings transfixed by a long shank hook.
Matt readied the salmon net as Lance reeled the fowl closer to John Stamos. The duck’s plumage was a velvety chocolate brown, with cream patches along his breast. His small black eyes surveyed us in fear and apoplexy.
“Grab him by the neck and pull off the hook. They don’t bite … hard,” Chris yelled back toward the melodrama rapidly unfolding behind him.
The duck screeched and squirmed, putting up a noble fight for being so well overmatched. Lance had him by the body and was trying his best to remove the entanglements as the duck bit him repeatedly … hard. Blood dripped from numerous bite wounds across his calloused hands.
“I’m trying to help you!,” Lance yelled. Exasperated, he gently smacked the duck across his bill, which seemed to briefly slow the feathered onslaught. However, the slight pause was followed by more bites, resulting in more smacks. Finally, the duck forfeited and relaxed into Lance’s grasp.
“I got it!” The hook was free, and the hapless bird was quickly flung overboard. It looked around in a daze, gave us one last dirty look, and dove under the ocean’s surface in search of less formidable prey.
“I thought you said they don’t bite,” Lance yelled up to Chris.
“I said they don’t bite hard! You should’ve grabbed it by the neck, like I said.”
“I need another beer,” said Lance as he dipped his hand overboard, washing off the red-stained rivulets that traced his hands. He lurched with the swells over to the white cooler situated in the shade of the cabin and lifted the lid; it creaked like an old man getting out of his favorite recliner. He dug his hand into the cold slurry of half-melted ice.
“You want one?,” he held up a white and blue can of Busch to Chris, who was staring out along the horizon, the pursuit of salmon ever on his mind.
Chris casually waved him off, “I’m into bush, not Busch.”
