A whale of a tale

This picture is of one of the huge grey whales that made national headlines recently on a West Seattle beach at the Arroyos.

The whale was hauled to a secluded beach and cut up with the remains a banquet for animal scavengers. After about a year, the bony carcass will be wired together like they do for those dinosaurs displayed in museums and shown at the Highline College aquarium in Redondo.

College President Dr Jack Bermingham hopes to display the huge skeleton in the main hall at the beach facility if the retrieval effort pans out.

So, it may take a year to find if the idea of saving the bony structure is indeed doable.

More fish stories

A couple of other true whale-of-a-tale stories:

The story above may be a stale story as the monster beached himself (or herself) a while ago. So while we have you hooked I want to tell you several other finny stories.

I once took number two son Ken salmon fishing at Neah Bay. My friend Jim Cardwell from White Center joined us and the hooknose silvers were practically leaping into the boat. Ken even caught a 38-pound king.

But my friend Jim never got a bite. He was ready to fling his body over the side but then talked me into changing gear and going after some halibut next to the bottom.

So we felt sorry for him and after five minutes, sure enough, he hooked a beauty and after a tussle got his monster up to the boat and laid out a plan.

He would gaff his guesstimated 40-pounder, I would hold the fish box lid open and when he flipped his catch into the box I would slam the lid down.

On the count of three, he gaffed his shiny battler up and into the box and I slammed the lid closed. Well, not totally closed. The gaff was still in the box also, with the wicked sharp hook in its beak.

So his plan called for my lifting the lid a teensy way while he grabbed the gaff and I would slam the lid back down. On the count of three, I opened the lid, the gaff came free and swoosh, the huge halibut went flying overboard back into the water

Cardwell went nuts, shouting and jumping up and down like crazy. He started the engine and back he headed for shore like a mad hornet leaving a hive.

Seething with disgust he never said another word till we were in the car and headed home.

One other time, I was fishing for Ling Cod at Neah Bay with my Normandy Park friend George Ramsey and he hooked a big one and we netted it and dropped the ugly but great eating fish into the boat.

George reached into the threatening huge maw and was extracting his hook when the lively fish started flopping around and George shouted, " Whack him, whack the lunker with the tunker, his teeth are into my knuckles."

So I did. I grabbed the bat-shaped wooden tunker and started pounding away.

"Stop, stop," George shouted. "His teeth are killing me."

I finally got his trophy subdued and he then extricated his bloody fist and he was happy to go home, glaring at me most of the way.