The Best Catch

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So wow, it's been a while! I apologize for my absence, dear readers, but I will say that it has been for a good reason. I have been busy and sick and busy, but was able to land the most amazing catch of my life recently at Westport, WA.
My girlfriend and I had decided to do a little getaway to the sleepy town at the edge of everything. I like to fish off the jetty there; it has a variety of fun and unusual fish like rockfish, ling-cod, surf-perch and greenling. In the days running up to our trip it was a little disheartening when the weather report said wind and rain for the whole weekend, and it was downright depressing when we got there and the forecast was correct. The wind was pretty intense, which made the rain rather unpleasant, but we had the hotel booked and were going to make the best of it.
If you've never been to Westport, it is a small fishing town on the Washington coastline, right at the mouth of Greys Harbor. During the salmon season, Westport is a busy place, with people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors hopping on and off of charter boats, lots of trucks with empty trailers parked in neat lines, and a constant hum of activity running day and night as people go forth in pursuit of the wily pacific salmons.
February is different. Nobody is fishing. The charter offices are dark. We got doughnuts in the morning and had the place to ourselves for the most part. Lunch was the same. The only place with some life to it was the coffee shop, where we encountered a van's worth of surfers. They were caffeinating as they waited for the tide to drop; getting amped up before jumping into the maelstrom. They were, for all intents and purposes, crazy people. We sat and drank our hot beverages, and decided that we should at least see the ocean while we were there, torrential rain and howling wind be damned. So we hopped in to the car and took off towards the beach.

Darn you, Poseidon!

When we arrived, Jodi pulled out the expired Discover Pass. We turned around and went to the free parking spot just down the road. As we parked, we noticed that there were a few elderly people walking their dogs in the middle of the storm and figured that if they could do it, so could we.
When we went as far as we could (read: wanted to), we found a spot out of the wind. With as deft a presentation as my cold hands could muster, I produced a ring from my pocket and asked Jodi to be my wife. Standing there, soaking wet, battered by wind, with only the sea-grass and the mighty Pacific bearing witnesses, I landed the greatest catch of my life.

We then booked it back to the car.

We will now resume our regular programming; look forward to posts about fishing for SRC, tying flies, and conservation coming soon!

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