A good friend of mine went out in the salt today, north of Seattle and hooked 24 b-mouth today between 2 people. They finally took home a 12 and a 19.
Did anyone else do any good today???

Hey shouldn't you be in bed resting or something. That sounds like a pretty kickass day.

I made it out Friday and barely on Saturday. Your friend must have been in the right spot at the right time.

I was also in the north sound area, didn't see any fish caught and only heard about 1 in the boat. A lot of shakers and a few good take downs but nothing for me. Friday was much better.

For those of us that made it out Saturday, it was rough for a little bit but got a little nicer later in the day. For those that decided to head home and not chance it, should of held out just a little longer. At about 7 am there where gust getting close to 40mph. Finally calmed down to about 15mph at around 8. For those that headed out in those big gusts....Man, you are NUTZ!!!

Went out today w/ him and hit 5 and took home a honey of a 14 pounder. What a dynamite fishery!!

fishbelly2, what tide have you been fishing?

The past 2 days they have hit on all tides but primarily on the outgoing. We took the 14# this AM @ 7:30 on almost slack low....

Man are you in the right place at the right time! I stayed off the water Saturday, but today I gave it a try - not at Midchannel where I wanted to fish due to high wind and waves, but in behind Hood Head where it is protected from the north and is a quick run to the boat launch with the wind at my back if it shifts to NE. I saw very little bait and hooked only one fish - didn't get to see it as it came off just under the surface, but it didn't feel real big.

Real disappointed that the weather they were forecasting right up until Saturday morning didn't happen. I can't think of any of my favorite spots that I can safely fish in my boat when the wind is 25 out of the north. Well, maybe next week

Better tides on the next two weekends. Plus 10 will be open and probably have fish.

Jason S

Hey spawnout, When were you at HH. I gave it a try there to Sunday morning thinking I could brave the wind there cause I was not fishing on the Eastside or Mid-Channel. I was in the little green terd out about 1030-1130 ish, it just became more work then fun. We had a hit on jigs but I did not get a good set either, more woried about staying in the boat.

NEN

Hey NEN, I might have seen you jigging out there - did you have 3 in the boat? I was just heading for the launch about that time in the Smokercraft - I'd been out there since daylight and had enough "fun" for one day. The fish I hooked, and the little bit of bait I saw, was up near the point about a mile or so north of the launch - it was a bit rougher out there of course. Man, your boat looked littler than mine - don't see that too often

I did get back to Westport in time to get another limit of herring - 33 dozen put up so far. Gonna get the whole family out there Friday evening and then spend all Saturday putting up bait, might get to fish on Sunday - all you guys lucky enough to fish Area 10 on Friday, how about a report!

Spawnout,
I think I saw you too then as you were going in, I was putting a few pots out between the launch and the point. But there were just two in my boat. And sometimes I do some crazy things out of that little boat but it sure surprises people when I show up at the launch with fish out of that little cracker boat.
I'm going to go clamming thursday and stay out there and reserve a capmsite for the rest of the family for Friday. I will head over to westport and give it a try some time Friday. I'll be the rookie herring catcher, the only one with the empty bucket. Short fat guy, most likly with a filson on. See you there.

NEN

Yeah man! Had the day all scheduled for jury duty, but when they cancelled the trial, and the weather report was for light and variable in Admiralty Inlet, I went fishing at Midchannel instead Hooked SIX, including a fish in the mid-teens that came off at the boat as I was reaching for it with the net , and wound up taking home a nice nine pounder! Hooked two on the coyote, but when I noticed how small the bait that the birds were bringing up was I changed to a coho killer, and that hooked me 4 fish on 3 drifts - either that or the fishing just got better closer to low tide. Anyway, 6 fish on in 3 hours is about as good as I've done so far this year, and while maybe it's not "on fire" it's at least warm Now I have a delimma - do I go back to Midchannel this weekend or do I go for all those fresh fish at Allen Banks

how small of boat do you guys use up at midchannel bank? just wodering cause I have a 14 ft sea nymph and the weather is always messed up when I got the chance to go up there like today SCA. Ben

Hey Rockfish, I've got a 15 foot Smokercraft Alaskan, and that's just about as small a boat as I've ever seen out there. It can get nasty and dangerous real quick. You also get freighters and tugs - not to mention Bayliners - at high speed putting up some nasty sneaker waves. That sea nymph a short-shaft boat? If so, I'd think twice before going out there in it

what do you mean short shaft boat. it has a real wide bow. I've taken it to tatoosh island and about a half mile down the coast last july but never again but it handles rough water. is it rougher than possesion bar on normal days. I dount make the run across unless theres no wind. dam I want to go there. Ben

We will be hitting the Southworth - Blake - Allen Bank area Saturday. If nothing going then maybe up to Jeff Head Sunday. Hopefully someone made it out in area 10 today and will give us a report this afternoon.
-rbf :p

just got back from manchester tons of bait but no keepers, every body had the same story at the launch. gonna hit jeff head tomorrow. Ben

Hey Rockfish, thank for the report on Manchester - just about decided me on Midchannel tomorrow. Were you out in front of the launch or did you make it over to Allen Banks? And didn't mean to dis your boat - what I meant by "short shaft" is does it have a short shaft (16") motor or long shaft (20") motor? Makes a little difference in the 2 foot chop predicted for tomorrow, if you can deal with that then you probably can risk Midchannel, althugh who knows, maybe Jeff Head's the ticket, any reports from today?

Hey Rockfish where and how deep were you marking bait? I went out Friday afternoon and saw nothing. Caught a couple shakers but that was it. Am haeding out Sunday morning again need to find some fish prior to next weekends derby.

Jason S

Just pulled in from fishing Elliot Bay this morning. I caught zip! There was a boat that pulled out right before me and they had 2 nice Blackmouth that were caught at Dolpin Point. Kinda wish I'd had gone over there. I followed a big bait ball around all morning right in front of Armini Ramp.

jason bait was at the fuel depot and the troll from the depot to yukon harbor, is was shallow earlier but 110ft or more later in the day, but I was snagging herring on my jig then rig them live and have them swim around the bottom till the rod quit shaken, had a good takedown. Ben

spawnout is it always rough up there, is it worse than sekiu or neah bay do you think. I want to fish there but an hour ride just to see unfishable water wouldn't be cool. have you gone out in sequim or port angelos in your boat before, wonder if theres protected blackmouth fishing up there? its a long shaft but I try to avoid rough water, point no point area with a little chop is about it as far as being comfortable with the conditions. one day I hope to have a bigger boat. seen some at the sportsman show for pretty cheap payments. Ben

I'll be out in the morning. Good tide tomorow morning. Hopefully some fish. Next weekend is the Brownsville and Manchester Derbys anyone fishing either?

manchester I hope, haven't heard about it yet, thats not sayin much, bay street outfitters has tickets huh?

Okay, here's your weekend Puget Sound blackmouth report. Saturday we fished Jeff Head-very slow! Not much bait around, but did manage to land a 6 and a 7. Sunday we wanted to try for larger fish so north we went to Poss. Bar. Man, that run-off was rippn' Fished all morning and released one 20 inch fish. Fished hard until low slack then bam a double! Mine was the first in, a nice 11 # fish. Dad was still working on his. Ten minutes later a beautiful 15 # blackmouth hits the net! All in all a great weekend on the water-we don't get days like this in March very often!

And here's your report from Midchannel - fished it both days. Saturday it was slow until a couple hours before low, when I hit a fish after seeing a couple other small ones hooked. Nice fish, maybe 8-9, but I'll never know because just as I was reaching for the net I got sealed - bugger took me under the boat and thrashed my fish so bad on the other side that it busted it off, coyote and all! After much unmentionable behavior and language I put on another spoon, ran back up, ran through the drift again, and hit another one - 10 pounds this time - kind of horsed it in but managed to net it anyway unscathed. While I was bleeding it out my buddies hooked up right next to me and managed to land an 11 pounder. After a few pics I left - when I talked to them that evening they had hooked 4 more before slack, lost one to a seal, lost a couple to horsing them in to avoid the seal, and landed a 5 pounder which they released in hopes for a double digit job, but no luck.

Sunday I took my wife out there, tried to hit just the good part of the tide, and hooked nothing, saw nothing hooked, and when I finally bunched it after low and hit the launch found out that some early birds hit them at 0 dark 30 before high. Oh well, water was as calm both days as I have ever seen it - there was so much sunshine it was annoying (although the northwest wind off the Olympics was cold as hell, just ask my wife!), there was bait all over the place - almost too much - there were very few boats, and I did catch my largest of the season so far, so all in all not bad.

Rockfish, sounds like your boat will handle water about as well as mine, and I do fish out of Sekiu, Neah Bay, PA, etc., but only when no small craft warnings are predicted, and I stay pretty close to the launch as I have a top speed of about 20. At Midchannel, if the weather report is for 5-15 and 1-2 foot wind waves I'll fish it, but not if it is going to be any worse than that. I keep my eyes open and run for it if I feel anything that might be a 20+ gust coming. This past weekend was great, and today it was so flat that you could have fished it in a duck boat.

I dont think that I have ever fished so long with NOTHING! happening. We trolled Restoration Point, Manchester and Allen Bank Saturday and then north to Jeff Head Yesterday. We had three downriggers at various depth's with various baits, including Herring, both plug cut and whole, with and without inject herring oil, coyote spoons, plugs, you name it, it probably got wet. We had one herring come back chewed up a bit.

RBF's boat is a 32' Grand Banks. He just got her in November.What a pleasure it is to fish on such a nice boat. RBF has 3 Penn 600's mounted on
her. We are yet to put a fish on it. Do you think she may have an "Electrical or Magnetic Field" problem. Do we need a "Black Box", or are we just the only crackers who couldn't buy a fish in area 10?

Gutz,
You weren't the only one that hit 10 hard...I put everything down and the only action was two shakers on a splatter-back silver horde. Didn't mark any bait but numbers of larger fish. Didn't see one net come out all day.
Manchester should at least put out shakers. Too bright and sunny?

Hey Gutz, it's important to make sure your boat is not putting off a voltage that is either too high, or too low. It's a long and complicated thing, but the Scotty web site has a good explaination of it. Basically, you want between 0.4V+ and 0.8V+ when measured between the negative terminal on your battery (- probe) and your downrigger wire (+ probe). If you have any other questions, email me.

That said, even with a "tuned" aluminum boat (0.62V+ without the box) AND a black box (to fine-tune and pulse the voltage), if the fish aren't there, you're not likely to catch them. I proved that on Sunday, fished out of John Wayne Marina, didn't touch a fish all day, didn't see any bait. The view was nice though.

-N.

I caught shakers at Manchester. probably two or three dozen. But the action ran in spurts. Would catch a half dozen real quick and couldn't find them for another hour. Small fish will be able to win the derbies this weekend. Marked some bait not near as much as normal though.

Fished aaaaaaal day on Sat @ Hat Isl and didn't touch a thing. The people that I saw w/ fish @ the launch in the pm all got theirs pre-dawn. QUESTION: What have you found is the best tide to fish, does it make a difference???

Thanks for all the reports guys - now I don't feel so bad about getting skunked on Sunday, and feel DAMN good about hooking 2 on Saturday I'll post the pic of one that my buddies took of me this last weekend and sent to me on my work computer if I get time tomorrow.

For blackmouth in the areas I fish the last 2 hours before low seems to be the hot time. And did I hear someone fishing various depths? Got to fish on the bottom, and I mean within 5 feet and hitting it occasionally, if you are going to consistently connect on blackmouth. I actually wear the chrome off of Hotspot flashers from banging them on the bottom

Low slack has been producing best for our boat. Either side of it works fine. My brothers girlfriend picked up her first sunday-12lbs. Between the tides we haven't been marking much and it's been slow. So far hoochies and spoons have accounted for all our fish. Haven't limmited the boat yet but haven't got skunked yet so that's pretty good.

Hey Spawnout. I disagree. Allot of Blackmouth will suspend when not activly feeding and take baits. Also first thing in the morning and leter in the evening the fish will come up into the water column. If you fish just the bottom all day every day you are missing allot of fish. I had 5th and 6th place fish at Manchester Derby last year 8#1amd 8#6 and both were caught at 32 ft.

Jason S

Well I dunno, Jason, I have caught a few blackmouth fish suspended in midwater, when I occasionally see fish up off of the bottom on the screen under a bait stack and go after them there, but by far the vast majority of the fish I see and catch are on the bottom. And I run sidescan sonar and see a lot of fish. I'd much rather fish the higher percentage area.

Here's a ten pounder that came off the bottom last weekend

Crap, guess my pics are too dense to post on the BB - copy the URL into your browser to see it I guess

Spawnout, try resizing your image to no bigger than, say, 640 pixels wide, and leave out the space in in the filename between "Midchannel" and "Blackmouth", it gets interpreted as "%20" and throws off most browsers.

-N.

We did spend most of the time trying to stay as close to the bottom as we could. My buddies are a little paranoid about dragging their balls though. I will bounce 'em write off and then crank up a bit. The only guy's we saw hooked up on Jeff Head Sunday said they were trolling 80 feet, so we did give that a try.

StorminN;
Is there some way to test the boat for the electrical field without spending $100s ?

Gutz,
Here is a link to the Scotty page that walks ya through the test you are looking for without the blackbox. http://www.scottyusa.com/blackbox2.html
Hope this helps ya out.
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff

Thanks Jeffhead!

I like to run 3 rods out of our boat. Two on the down riggers and one with a 10 or 12 ounce weight. So far this year we are running around 50/50 for keepers. The down riggers seem to pick up more shakers and lots of bottom fish but when the other rod gets hit it's almost always a 7-10 pound fish. Could be the flashers though since we haven't changed them around much.

I agree about the percentages. But i am always messing with how deep my downrigers are. When I mark bait I will raise or lower to run to the bottom of the bait balls. But in the morning early at first light I am always shallow and it is when I catch the majority of the nice sized keepers. During high sun yeah I run on the bottom almost always. I like to vary depth allot more when I have another guy in the boat, mostly fish alone.

Thanks StormN, nice to have help from the computer literate - lets try this again:



JasonS, it sounds like you do about what I do - I chase the bottom of the bait balls with my booger ball also - except for the bit about trolling shallow in the early AM - now I do that for returning fish all the time, but almost never for blackmouth, although I will admit my first fish this year was caught in the dark on opening day under a shallow stack of bait at about 32 feet. But that was bait and fish chasing - yep, saw him right there - never about heading down the drift shallow. But y'know, that one and one other on the bottom but at the shallow end of the drift were the only two I hooked at 0 dark 30 so far this year, so you may be onto something.

When I do fish shallow, or if I have a crowd and someone needs to flatline, I use a diver instead of a big chunk of lead - I've got a 4 ouncer that will dive as deep as a pound of lead and is a lot more fun if you get a fish on.

Sure are lots of blackmouth ideas to go around

Yeah GutZ, check out that Scotty site, they have lots of good info there. Basically you just need an accurate voltmeter (to the .01V) and you touch your negative lead to your negative battery terminal and your positive lead to your downrigger wire. Make sure you're away from other boats, don't do it in a marina, etc., and don't do it in freshwater or near a river mouth, the salinity of the water affects the reading. Other than that, it's pretty simple, unless you have an off reading (way too high or too low), which means you have to track down the source of the problem, ie., bad bonding, grounding, wiring, etc... which can get complicated.

And rcl187, as far as not catching fish on the downriggers and catching fish on the weighted line, let me guess, are those Cannon downriggers with the "Auto-stop" feature when the ball gets to the surface? If so, that's your problem. Those particular downriggers put a charge on the downrigger cable, and sense when the ball has broken the surface of the water... some sort of ground fault circuit. What this means is, every time you raise those downriggers, you are putting over 7.0V+ on the downrigger cable, TOTALLY pushing fish away from the cables... salmon don't like voltages much over 0.8V+, never mind more than SEVEN times that.

I just talked to a guy a week ago, he told me on his last boat, he would catch 80% of his fish on one downrigger, not the other... at first I thought he meant coho, and that could be attributed to which side the kicker motor was on, but he was talking about blackmouth, fishing 120 feet down... so I asked him what kind of downriggers he had at the time, and he said, "One Scotty, one Cannon"... and the Scotty caught 80% of the fish, because the Cannon had the 7.0V+ auto-stop feature. He has two Scottys now and catches fish equally on both. Just and interesting thought...

-N.