friends in from out of town for some salmon fishing. figure the most dependable/do'able(in my 18ft hewescraft) bite will be Seiku. leaving tonight at 6pm. whats the best route-i live in west seattle. ferry/16 bridge? whats the drive time? any recommendation of lodging?- cheap- a bunch of guys that don't mind a little funk. whats the best launch? is it worth dropping a crab pot anywhere there? think i understand the silver fishery(used to check fish for the state out there), but any advice. apologize in advance for being so info needy.

>>friends in from out of town for some salmon fishing. figure the most dependable/do'able(in my 18ft hewescraft) bite will be Seiku.

Don't rule out the south sound, Pt. Defiance and areas around Vashon. There are Kings around right now.

>>leaving tonight at 6pm. whats the best route-i live in west seattle. ferry/16 bridge? whats the drive time?

Save the time and cash from the ferry toll and drive around. It's a good 4 - 5 hour drive depending on traffic. Leaving at 6:00, the Narrows bridge traffic should be OK, a little slow but IMO still better than the ferry option.

>>any recommendation of lodging?- cheap- a bunch of guys that don't mind a little funk.

I like Curley's. But they're all decent enough.

>>whats the best launch?

I like the Olson ramp, but Van Riper's is OK too.

>>is it worth dropping a crab pot anywhere there?

Yep, right out in the bay.

Someone else will probably give you a better reply, but my info will be better than nothing. I don't know the Seattle area very well so the only route I know is taking the Bainbridge Island-Seattle ferry across. Then just head towards Port Angeles. You might check out http://www.mapquest.com and see what route it shows you. I'm not sure where to stay out there because we've always just drove home.

I was out there 2 Saturdays ago during the last day for Kings. The silvers weren't very deep; according to the fish finder they ranged from 16-22 feet deep. We launched at Olsen's and headed east of there. Once out of the bay we were fairly close to shore and in about 130-140 feet of water. 2 of our poles were on the downrigger using a green/white flasher with a blue/green hootchie with a herring fillet. One pole had 4oz of lead and a cut-plug herring. The cut-plug herring got about as much action as the other 2 poles combined. The cut-plug also got us the only King of the day and we were only using 4oz of lead. If I went again I would take a lighter rod and put a buzz bomb or something on because sometimes the fish would be jumping around on the surface and casting over to them might prove successful. Good luck out there!

~ Dr Pepper

Howdy JRH,

Route: Take the ferry, it will save you driving time, but not necessarily trip time. Any mileage I can save when towing is a blessing to me. Take your pick on which ferry is closest to you. Once you hit the other side, look at a 3 hour trip, including stops. I would also continue out 101 to Sapho and make my turn from there. The road from Joyce winds around a bit and 101 is a straighter shot and nicer when towing a boat. There is some heavy road construction on the 15 miles between Sapho and Clallam Bay, about 4 miles from town. Go slow as part of the road was red clay mud and VERY SLIPPERY. You don't want to wreck after making it that far.

Lodging: Stop at the Coho Resort between Clallam Bay and Sekiu. One nights camping and moorage runs about $25 a day/night. If you are tenting it go all the way to the Clallam Bay end (east) of the campground against the hill. It will keep you out of the wind. Coho has a nice dock facility and protected moorage as well as a good selection of gear if you forgot something. Bait is $3, Ice $2. Buy lots if you plan on using plug cuts. There is also a motel there, I think it's the Bay motel. Coho takes no reservations, but you won't need them. Coho is at 360-963-2333. Ask for Rhonda and tell her Andy M. the banker sent you. She should have info on the motel as well.

Crab pots. Had mine stolen last weekend
and I will never bring one out there again. Unless you sit on it, don't drop it. They got mine in an hour and a half, A**HOLES.

Methods. If you have two rods each, rig one with a 2oz banana sinker and a mooching rig, preferably 30lb line to reduce line kinks. Use ball bearing swivels as well because you will be trolling. Troll plug cuts soaked in a rocksalt brine, it toughens them up so you won't go through LOTS of bait. They have rocksalt there at the Coho, but bring an empty gallon milk jug, cut off part of the top, but not the handle. Soak you bait as soon as possible after you cut it. Tonight wouldn't be too early. Three of us went through 10 dozen in two days. Buy accordingly as you don't want to run out when the bite is hot. Save the heads! I'll get to that later. Fish this method from 5:00am until about 7:30, or when the bite slows. We had over 20 hits in the first hour of fishing, so get out there early when they are right up on top. We used light steelhead rods and had a blast!

The second rod, if you have downriggers, should just have two ball bearing swivels, back to back, and a mooching leader, again with 30lb test to reduce line kinks. No flasher. Go 40 to 50 pulls, put it on the downrigger and drop it to 25 feet max in the early morning. You will get many hookups while setting the release, so be prepared for it. Fish the downriggers after the early morning bite is over, after 7:30am.

When that method has slowed down, move to a flasher rigged with a green hoochie and a mooching hook set. Hook the herring heads on the top hook of the hoochie for a teaser taste and troll this at 45' between 2 and 4 mph by your GPS.

Finally, if you have any pukers, they can easily hit silvers off of the beach between Sekiu and Coho's moorage. Cast blue/white, pink/white buzzbombs or darts. Lots of candlefish near shore. Go about 100 to 200 yards west of the Coho boat launch and you won't be casting into the kelp.

Where: I haven't been more than a mile of shore yet, and seldom troll east of the green can at the east side if the bay. We usually drop the baits once we hit 50 feet of water, about 300 yards from where we moored the boat. Race track pattern about 3/4 to a mile out in front of the bay has worked well every time for me, but I caught a number of fish by heading west to the area 4/5 boundary. This is marked by a large concrete bridge that you can see in the next bay west from Clallam bay, about 5 miles.

If you can't catch fish using these methods, sell your boat, your gear, and take up needlepoint. Best of luck and sorry for the book, but this should answer most of your questions. Watch out for the fog, GPS is a plus if you have one as landmarks are pretty scarce out in the straight, and you usually don't want to find one in the thick fog.

Andy

HEY, THANKS FOR THE INFO. I'LL REPORT ON ANY SUCCESS. KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN ON THE STOLEN CRAB TRAPS, I HAD 2 SHRIMP POTS STOLEN IN THE LAST MONTH- MAY BE WORTH THE HASSEL OF SETTING SOME AS BAIT AND WAITING W/ A GOOD PAIR OF BINOCS...MY HULL IS ALUMINUM CHANCES ARE THEY'LL HAVE FIBERGLASS...

See what I mean when I said someone else will have a better reply . Good info Andy.

~ Dr Pepper

JRH: might have already missed ya...just in case or for others. Andy has some great advise. I might add though that I went to Neah Bay couple weeks ago. My son & I hooked at least 100 fish in 3 day, mostly COHO. All you needed was 4" green/white coyote spoon fished at 25' from your downrigger. Bait was waste time & money for me. The bait works great, but since the spoons worked so incredibly well, I bought some first day, used two, then threw them away as they weren't needed. The spoons were far easier to C & R as well with the single siwash hook. The only thing limiting number of fish hooked was amount of time we wanted to fish the rips where the coho were. Oh yeah, by the way, we also caught 8 kings up to 34 lbs on the exact same setup! (for the kings we put the spoon 4' behind a hot-spot flasher). Double hook-ups were common, as well as take downs before we could get the spoons below the surface on the downriggers.