I now have a boat capable of fishing areas 9 and 8.2 this winter for blackmouth when they open in Feb. Any hints or helps that you may be able to share on these two areas would be appreciated. My boat is equiped with all the needed gear (riggers, sounder, etc...). Just need some pointers on speed, time of day, tides, depth.
thanks in advance.

Mr Bad or Dawg what ever you prefer..just pulling you chain, I am from whidbey and my favorite place is a short drive from your location. tow the boat to anacorties and the have a ramp called washington park and stright out from the ramp approx 5 miles is the san jaun islands. fish around james and bird rocks and black rock has its days. the beauty is the island pertect you from the weather and if you have to spend the night lodging is not far away. and under moderate weather you can follow the ferry back to the main land...I fish green glow squids abd coho killers behing a flasher and do quite well....DJ

I'd head over to Pt. no Pt. and troll from there to Pilot Pt. and back. Start in 120' and fish out to maybe 180'. I grew up at PNP and we never really fished more than 180'. It was usually 120-150'. All the standard gear workd there. Possesion will be another good spot as will the race track near Everett.

Well I could write a book on blackmouth fishing - wait someone already has . so I'll try to keep it to bare basics. You need to fish around structure(bars,ledges,depressions, etc) and then concentrate on finding the bait and staying on it! This time of year you'll want to keep your gear near the bottom unless your sounder is telling you the fish are higher in the column. Speed will depend on what your using. since I like to fish plugs and hardware I'm usually trying to keep my speed above 2mph on the gps. 45 - 60 degee angle on the rigger cables is a good gauge of speed thru the water. For bait or hoothies with herring strip you'll need to slow it down a little but its not imperitive. The nice thing about the everett area is that there are so many productive fishing spots nearby.

when i fish in everrette i fish the south west side of hat (gedney) island, in 115-120 feet range. i troll green glow dodger with 36-40 inch leader with a coyote spoon, green glow or green silver, or i troll cut plug herring by itself, or cut plug behind a doger. i usually put about 15-25 feet of line out behind the rigger ball. those set ups have worked really well for me. good luck!