IF YOU HAPPEN to come across a grade school teacher today, I suggest you shake his or her hand.
As I learned during a visit to Franklin Elementary School in Port Angeles on Thursday morning, anyone who can hold the attention of a classroom full of twitching little tykes for more than five minutes deserves respect.
When Franklin principal Amity Butler first invited me to speak to third- and fourth-grade students about writing a couple of weeks ago, it seemed like a piece of cake.
After all, who knows the art of prose better than your local outdoors columnist? (Actually, please don’t answer that.)
I’d talked to big groups before about the newspaper business and handled the whole thing with aplomb.
So what if all of those speeches were given in front of adults?
Well, it’s quite different when the audience consists of dozens of beady little eyes staring back at you curiously.
We’re talking about the future here. And they were looking to me for answers.
As any avid reader of this column would guess, I had very few to offer.
After a rambling five-minute speech that rotated between messages of “stay in school” and “read, read, read,” I decided it was probably best to just open the floor to questioning.
Needless to say, this just opened the flood gates.
Queries ranged from “Do you know my dad?” to “I just wanted to tell you, I hate tennis.”
After I made the mistake of admitting to keeping a diary — and writing about girls I liked in it — I’d pretty much lost all credibility.
Thankfully, there were a couple of teachers on hand to stop the bleeding.
I’m telling you: Shake their hands.
Coastal halibut
It’s an early show for halibut on the coast.
The way Randy Lato of All-Ways Fishing (360-374-2052) in Forks tells it, a lot of the guys who are picking off flatties near the southwest corner of the Halibut and Bottomfish Closure Zone in Marine Area 3 (LaPush) are doing so right off the bat.
“You go from looking around and everybody is hooking fish to nobody is hooking nothing [by 9 a.m.],” Lato said.
“When you first get there, it’s good, everybody is hooking up. Then all of the sudden [nothing].”
Despite the drastic changes in fortune, anglers have done well on the coast during the past two openers.
There’s been plenty of halibut to pick through — most in the 25- to 35-pound range, according to Lato — much of the season.
“[There’s] not a lot of big fish, but there’s a lot of fish. Decent fish, respectable fish,” Lato said. “But the lings? We had four that were over 20 pounds, and two that were 15 or so.”
Lingcod have been plentiful all season in Area 4 (Neah Bay) as well.
That shouldn’t change during Saturday’s coastal halibut opener, either.
Whether anglers can pick off a few flatties as well around Neah Bay could be another matter all together.
While they ran into a few Thursday, there were no monsters submitted to Big Salmon Resort’s Halibut Derby ladder.
Part of that, however, was because the man who caught the biggest fish of the day (a 140-pounder) didn’t buy a $25 derby ticket.
“That’s the largest fish we’ve seen of the season,” Joey Lawrence of Big Salmon Resort (360-645-2374) in Neah Bay said.
“There was a lot of fish [caught Thursday], but I guess the guys are figuring they are not really worth weighing in.”
The derby leader after one day was a 45-pound halibut. The top lingcod was 23 pounds.
The event comes to a close on Saturday, which will likely also be the final halibut opener of the season on the coast.
Payout for the top halibut is $1,800, while the biggest lingcod will fetch $300 and the largest sea bass $200.
Sekiu story
The Marine Area 5 (Sekiu) flatty fishery began with a flourish last week.
Unfortunately, unfavorable conditions are likely keep anglers from submitting a repeat performance during this weekend’s set of openers.
“Overall it’s kind of running pretty much parallel to what it was last year as far as the catch rates go,” Chris Mohr of Van Riper’s Resort (360-963-2334) in Sekiu said.
“Last weekend, the first couple of days were, in my point of view, real good. This weekend is going to be a different story. The tides have just got us hosed.”
Indeed, strong minus tides figure to wreak havoc on anglers near Sekiu.
As of 1 p.m. on Thursday, Mohr said he’d seen less than a half a dozen halibut all day.
“I’m not holding out a lot of hope for this being a good halibut weekend,” Mohr said. “Just too much current.”
There is reason for faith for next weekend, however, when Van Riper’s will host the Sekiu Halibut Derby.
When anglers were greeted with decent tides a week ago, they fared pretty well. The first day of the season even produced a 174-pound monster.
“[The fish] are scattered all around,” Mohr said. “About half of the guys are fishing from Sekiu Point to [around the] Sekiu River, and the other half are scattered out between Pillar Point and Slip point.
“Last week, the bigger fish came from down by Pillar Point.”
The Sekiu Halibut Derby will be held next Saturday from daylight to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $15.
The top halibut on the ladder will pay out $10 per pound, while second place gets $400 and third $100.
There is also a $100 prize for the largest sea bass caught.
Derby stuff
If you can’t fish a derby, the next best thing is hanging out at the weigh station.
Standing around the docks on the first day of the Port Angeles Salmon Club’s 11th annual Halibut Derby last Saturday, I probably saw more fish in one hour than I will the rest of the summer.
The most enjoyable part about it — other than exchanging fish stories — was seeing what was in each flatty’s belly.
Derby volunteer Lee Hancock cut out the stomachs of each and every fish that was weighed at the event that day.
As one might expect, many were as empty as a reality television star’s intellect.
The contents of other tummies were as varied as locations in which they were caught.
Some halibut had swallow clam necks whole, while others had taken down an array of smaller sealife like flounder, lingcod and octopus.
There was even a chicken halibut that had somehow gobbled up a fellow flatty about eight inches in diameter.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.
Sometimes, that means eating your own.
Longest Day
Team and individuals can raise money for Jefferson County trails by participating in the The Longest Day of Trails event Sunday, June 19.
Walkers, runners, skateboarders, cyclists, horseback riders and others are invited to traverse the Larry Scott Memorial Trail in Port Townsend from sunrise (5:11 a.m.) to sunset (9:10 p.m.)
The event benefits three local trail building groups including Pacific Northwest Trails Association, Jefferson Trails Coalition and Quimper Trails Association.
Participants log as many miles as possible during the daylight hours. Registration is a suggested donation of $10.
For more information, visit www.longestdayoftrailspt.wordpress.com.
Also . . .
■ Washington Trails Association will gather an all-day work party at Peabody Creek Trail in Olympic National Park this Tuesday.
Pre-registration must be done 48 hours in advance. To pre-register, contact Washington Trails at 206-625-1367 or visit www.wta.org.
■ Clallam County Streamkeepers will be accepting and training new volunteers this month.
The stream monitoring program is looking for volunteers to help collect stream health data, perform data entry and analysis and conduct education and outreach programs.
To register or inquire, phone Streamkeepers at 360-417-2281, or email streamkeepers@co.clallam.wa.us.
■ Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society will lead a birding trip to Lost Mountain next Saturday, June 11, at 8 a.m.
Birders will be looking for a wide array of breeding birds, including sapsuckers, MacGillvray’s warblers, house wren and purple finch.
A group will meet at Greywolf Elementary School, 171 Carlsborg Road, near Sequim before carpooling to DNR land off Olsen Place.
■ The Makah National Fish Hatchery will hold its second annual Kids Fishing Day next Saturday, June 11, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The event is open to kids ages 14 and younger, with fishing gear, refreshments and other activities provided by the hatchery at 897 Hatchery Road in Neah Bay.
There will be a two-fish limit for each child.
■ Coastal Conservation Association-North Olympic Peninsula Chapter will hold its annual fundraising banquet Friday, June 17, at 5 p.m. in John Wayne Marina.
There will be live and silent auctions, raffles for fishing and outdoor gear and an appearance from CCA Northwest founder and well-known fishing rod producer Gary Loomis.
Tickets are $65 for an individual or $120 a couple and include a one-year membership in CCA.
For tickets, call John Albiso at 360-928-1073 or email nop@ccapnw.org.
■ State shellfish specialist Rich Childers will speak at the Puget Sound Anglers-East Jefferson Chapter monthly meeting June 14 in Port Townsend.
Childers will discuss summer crabbing at the meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Marina Room at Hudson Point Marina.
Refreshments will be served, and the public is invited.
■ John McMillan will discuss area tributaries at the Olympic Peninsula Fly Fishers monthly meeting this Monday at 7 p.m.
The meeting will be held at the Campfire USA Club House in Port Angeles’ Webster Park, 619 E. Fourth St.
■ Waters West Fly Fishing Outfitters will hold a free casting clinic at Port Angeles’ Lincoln Park next Sunday, June 12, at 5:30 p.m.
The clinics are welcome to all skill levels, with the focus begin on overhead casting and roll casting. Rods will be provided for those who do not have one.
For more information, contact Waters West at 360-417-0937.
Send photos, stories
Want your event listed in the outdoors column?
Have a fishing or hunting report, an anecdote about an outdoors experience or a tip on gear or technique, why not share it with our readers?
Send it to me, Matt Schubert, Sports Department, Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362; phone, 360-417-3526; fax, 360-417-3521; email matt.schubert
@peninsuladailynews.com.
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Matt Schubert is the outdoors columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column appears on Thursdays and Fridays.
