On the sterns of the charter boats that jammed the Westport Marina -- 250 at the peak in 1979 -- groups of anglers drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, joked and set wagers on the first, the biggest and the most salmon.
In the pre-dawn darkness, as skippers warmed up engines and deckhands rigged rods and cut bait, the air was filled with diesel fumes, the smell of herring and fishing talk.
"Big ebb tide this morning. Crossing the bar might be nasty."
"Hey Earl, you gonna heave your breakfast before we reach the ocean?"
"Hope the skipper stops outside the breakers south of the bar at high tide. Kings were stacked in there last year -- got a 32-pounder."
"At 5 o'clock in the morning, Westport was happening," recalls Dean Etzkorn of West Seattle, back at Westport recently to renew a family tradition. "The activity was electric, from the minute you pulled into Westport. I'd like to see it come back."
Although the rolling blue-gray ocean remains the same -- the Westport bar is still rough as sin and sea gulls seem as abundant as ever -- a lot has changed since the salmon heydays of the 1960s and '70s.
The marina hosts only 25 charter boats these days, and seasons that used to last from May through September don't even start until late July.
This year's sport-fishing quotas for the Washington coast -- 110,000 coho and 20,200 chinook -- are fractions of the record ocean sport catch in 1976 of 942,840 coho and 170,719 chinook.
The daily limit of three salmon of any species through the early '70s dropped to two salmon through the 1980s and is now two salmon, only one of which may be a chinook.
And for the first time coastwide, anglers must release any coho with an intact adipose fin. Only hatchery-origin coho missing an adipose fin -- clipped off before the fish were released as juveniles -- may be kept.
It's called a "selective fishery." State fish managers see it as a way to protect stocks of wild, naturally spawning salmon, yet keep fishing seasons open in the age of Endangered Species Act listings up and down the coast.
"People often say to us, 'Why don't we close fishing down for four or five years,"' says Pat Patillo, a senior fish biologist for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. "That would have a big impact on people and communities. We think this is a much better option."
If a recent trip aboard the charter boat Gold Rush -- out of Westport Charters -- is any indication, selective fisheries are a success. Fishing has been very good this year overall, thanks to relatively large runs of hatchery coho.
State fish managers say this summer's season will last well into September. Without the selective approach, fishing would already be closed to protect wild coho.
Surprisingly, most anglers don't mind having to release a big fat coho that would have meant culinary bliss atop a barbecue grill.
"It doesn't bother me," says Etzkorn. "I'm here for sport. We need to bring back the fisheries. I think this will help, and I'm not real keen on taking out dams."
At the same time, anglers usually are getting great stuff for the grill. Hatchery coho are outnumbering unmarked coho off the south coast by 6-to-1. (It's just the opposite off the north coast at Neah Bay, where some anglers are grumbling.) And strong runs of chinook bound for the Columbia River are boosting catches.
On the way out to sea, I asked Gold Rush owner/skipper Kevin Vasereno, a high-school chemistry teacher and Westport salmon veteran of more than 30 years, if he thought selective fishing would work.
"It's working real well," he said. "Every once in a while someone will come up with the short end of the stick. Chuck Custer, skipper of the Freedom, had a day where he caught 36 wild coho."
Most anglers who have to release a wild coho are reacting favorably.
"They say, 'Oh cool, a wild fish.' They feel like they're doing their part," Vasereno said.
Deckhand Brian Mirante agreed. "Just one guy got mad so far, and he got mad at me."
On our trip, fishing was not fast-paced. The day before had been windy, cloudy and rainy and the seas roily as a roller coaster. Then overnight the wind and rain vanished and by mid-morning skies were clear.
A sudden weather and pressure change is never good for angling.
We fished an area eight to 10 miles straight out, but by noon, we had only two chinook and five hatchery coho in the box for 17 anglers, having released three wild coho.
But Vasereno is not a skipper who gives up easily. If a spot failed to produce bites, we moved. Vasereno scanned the sea for signs of bird activity, which often indicates schools of herring and anchovies below, and watched his electronic depth-finder for signs of the same.
When most charter boats had already headed back to port with skinny catches, the Gold Rush kept prospecting. By late afternoon we had 13 salmon, and had released six wild coho. All of the coho released except one swam away in fine shape.
One, however, was hooked deeply and despite the use of barbless hooks as required, was bleeding heavily from the gill. I suspect it did not survive.
By then the tide was high and Vasereno resorted to a tactic used by Westport skippers for decades.
"We're going to stop on the bar and see if there are any kings around," he told us. "It hasn't been good this year, but one day last week I stopped and got one and lost one."
After a 50-minute run we were right off the jetties that mark the entrance to Grays Harbor, and the bar looked fishy. Near Buoy 8 a mass of gulls and brown pelicans were actively feeding on a school of herring.
Right off rods started bending and on our first drift we took three or four ling cod -- a white-meated bottomfish -- and a chinook of about 16 pounds.
On the second drift, I dropped a whole herring to the bottom and had reeled in two turns when the tip of the rod dipped with that tell-tale tapping. I waited until the fish took the bait hard, put my thumb down on the reel spool and jerked the rod tip up sharply to set the hook.
Like king salmon do, the fish squirreled around the bottom shaking its head for a minute or so before tearing off on a sizzling 60-foot run. I worked it back close to the boat over several minutes, at which point it ran and we followed it around the boat, Vasereno with net in hand, from starboard to the bow, briefly to the port side, back across the bow to starboard and then back to the bow.
Finally the skipper put the net to a fat, white-bellied king of 18 pounds.
Once it was in the boat, Vasereno, whom I've known for about 23 years, laid the net and fish on the deck, looked up with a massive smile and extended his hand. "Just like old times at Westport," he said.
"Just like the old days," I said, grinning and grabbing his hand.
We ended the trip with several ling cod and rockfish and 15 salmon -- four chinook from 7 to 18 pounds and 11 coho from 7 to 11 pounds. Not bad for a slow day.
Charter boat contacts: Westport/Grayland Chamber of Commerce, .800-345-6223
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