When I started this thread a week or so ago, I said I'd give some of the ideas a whack and report back. Did that today, finally, and thought I'd pass along the little I learned.

My son and I fished the bombing range area along Whidbey, and the chums were fairly thick-- at least we could see them jumping in a large area. The fish were fairly close to shore and seemed to be withing 200 yards or so of the beach to right in the surf. There were possibly a dozen folks casting from the beach.

Didn't see any fish caught, but we ended up with two. One was a chum, and the other was a silver that looked to be a chum at first until I opened him up.

We basically trolled although we did a little bit of casting. Both fish were taken off downriggers set at 25 feet and on a moderately slow troll. The chum was taken on a green with silver mylar Coyote flasher followed by a two-hook leader tied with fluorescent pink Mustads and a strip of pink yarn on the front hook.
I tied a small pink corkie between the two hooks, and the entire package was probably three inches long.

The silver was caught on the rod using a smaller white flasher with a small pink hootchie in front of two blue hooks.

Tomorrow we'll probably head out there again and give the bait a shot. I thought we could net small herring on our way over, but bait balls were non-existent today. I'm taking frozen stuff tomorrow and will try the slow mooching technique.

Nice report, thanks!

OK all, the CHUMS are coming!!

That is what I have been looking for! Yeeee haw! Here dawgie..... That sounds like just what the doctor ordered!

Alright, feel kind of silly. Looked up information as to where this is and I can't find it. Can you help me?

Hmmm-- don't know if I should tell you since the fishing today was so poor. Yesterday we saw hundreds of fish jumping. Today there were maybe 20 fish. Yesterday there were maybe two or three seals; today there were a couple of dozen. There were also about 50 fishermen as well... so we couldn't get as close to the beach as I would have liked. We did see a couple of fish caught from the beach, though. Looked to be about the size of resident silvers. We didn't get a bite.

Anyway... this area is a long bay, sort of, just south of Keystone. It's several miles long and pretty much lays between Keystone and Lagoon Point. It's a giant eddy, and I think that is one of the reasons the fish hang there while migrating. The place where we saw the most fish yesterday, and where I've seen both chums and silvers in previous years is near the southernmost bunch of houses that are on the beach. Just south of there is a farm. From the water it's pretty obvious. There appears to be fairly good public access on the beach.

I can't make up my mind whether to hit it again tomorrow or head toward the bridge. A couple of days ago, I saw quite a few jumpers just south of the bridge, so that area should still have some fish around. Another possibility might be Foulweather or Possession if the wind drops a bit. It was a roughish crossing this afternoon with the northeast wind.

Thanks! I may give it a try myself. I saw some jumping near Meadow Pt. last week. Wonder if they will be heading there? I should pay more attention.