Just lookin for some feed back...Have any of you guys fished it over the weekend? I'm trying to get over there this week and was curious. Thanks in advance!

Might be headin out there myself this week. How hard is lodging going to be to find on like Wed or Thurs?

Check out Olson\'s . You can give them a call for reports and lodging availabilities.

Also, here's the link to the Chamber of Commerce for more info about lodging choices.

My guess is lodging shouldnt be a problem...Are u headin over by urself mawd?

Me and my pops-in-law are heading over early Thursday morning and will be staying until Friday some time. You gonna be over there around that time? Just got a brand new 19' Smokercraft Osprey a couple of weeks ago and need to put it to use. It's black and silver w/ Scotty electric riggers...give me a yell if you see us.

Good luck calling Olsens. Everytime I have they tell me how good it is. Once they told me it was the best they had seen in 10 years and when I went I found out that it had been dead. I talked to a guy who fished Sekiu today. It was slow. Lots of small fish. Pillar Point gave up some fish over the weekend. Lots of fish in the mid to high teens. Quite a few hatchery fish. These were local guys. They were picking them up mooching herring.

I checked my source at the Coho Resort. Fishing has been a bit slow, with some hatchery kings, most about 10-15 lbs with a few larger. Silvers were 2-6 lbs, but they had to wade through the wild fish to find some bonkers. Only a few pinks taken.

The terminal gear used by most folks varied, but the trash trollers (flasher & hootchie) seemed to produce the best results.

I'm headed up there Friday through Sunday.

I fished Saturday along with the other 500+ boats and had mixed results. Everything said so far is about what I saw too.
Saturday morning was perfect weather and I only saw 1 king kept and 3 released for a ton of boats between slip point and Mussilini area. I had several shakers and one good fish that jumped twice and threw the hooks, I'm sure it was wild.
Saturday night was the exact oppisite, the weather was nasty till about 830PM and few boats were out, we trolled in the same general area and between 730 and dark had a fish on every 10 minuets or so, I think we got 7 to the boat and could have kept three. All were smaller fish, largest was low 20's that we released followed by a few in the teens, keepers tended to be low teens. Also saw very little bait in the AM but it was everywhere at night.
Just a warning I heard from a very reliable source at WDFW that the quota may not last as long as they were hoping as a lot of smaller fish (clipped blackmouth or small kings) are being caught, with a two fish limit 3500 will not take that long, maybe as short as 10-14 days, hope its not true, I want to go again.
Hope this helps some, good luck to others.

NEN

thanks for the info....keep em coming

We got into the kings west of the caves just at daylight on Saturday. Brought sixteen fish to the boat and kept two. One was ten pounds and the other was fourteen. We released a few small legals and two really nice natives. It shut down at about 6:30 or 7:00 am like someone hitting a light switch.

Saturday afternoon no chinooks, zip, nada, nothing.

Sunday morning no chinooks, zip, nada, nothing.

Sunday afternoon from 4:30 pm until dark we released three nice natives, two probably in the high teens and one beautiful high twenties hen.

Oh well, still beats hell outta workin.

On a sour note:

We were super carefull with the natives. Kept the pressure on and didn't put a single one in the net but we saw fish regularly being released from the net and we also saw some floaters. Makes one wonder just how many natives the selective fishery actually saves.

This is my first year fishing chinooks at Sekiu and it reminds me too much of bouy 10 in August. So I'll probably stick to Canada and the ocean for my Chinooks in the future.

Just got back was there since the 3rd first two days got three silvers
That where hatchery just jacks know real size sat. Had 9 fish on two
Kept 1 king about 18lbs one silver 5lbs Sunday had 6 release and one was 40+
We where fishing just north of the sequ river in 230 ft of water with hook ups
From 10 – 50 feet small dodger and cut plug with 4’-5’leader
If I were you I would wait till the 13 or so. Good luck hoped this helped

I got in on the Pillar bite at 0 dark 30 on Monday- was about as hot as I've seen, wound up hooking 3 kings in a total of 1 1/2 minutes of actual fishing time, all were hatchery fish, kept a 10 and an 8. The bite fell way off when the sun came up, had to go to PA for a meeting anyway so that was fine with me - save some quota I used the downrigger with a hotspot and coyote instead of mooching as I usually do when I fish Pillar Point, as I didn't want to have a bunch of fish I was figuring on having to release swallowing bait, and the doggies were bad, even got one on the spoon The local moochers sure gave me sour looks :p

Now I'm chompin at the bit...thanks gents!

Just got back. Fished out of Olsens the last 2 days, then stopped at our cabin on Hood Canal on the way home for some rest last night and a limit of crab in 1 pull this morning. Great trip.

Hit the water at Sekiu Thursday morming at 07:00 hooked 13 silvers (2 kept) by 10:00. Not all that big, but tasty. Headed to sail rock and got 2 limits of rock fish and a nice ling. After a much needed nap back on the water at 7:00 PM. Hooked 7 kings in 1 1/2 hours (1 kept 7 lb) had to release 2 over 20. Then hit a ling at 27 on DR in 150' of water.....weird.

Friday hit water at 0:400 cought and released 5 silvers and 1 king (0 kept) by 09:00. Gave up on that and ran to sail in the fog. Got a ling and a few bottom fish and lost a huge ling.

All in all well worth the drive to see the old man fighting fish and cruising the new boat.

Glad to hear oyu had a good trip. How big were the silvers that were out there? Thanks

The keepers were 3-5 released a couple wild fish closer to 8-9. Spent 2 days trying to convince the old man that smaller hatchery fish taste better.....he wasn't buying it.

I fished Monday through Thursday. 22 kings and not a single clipped. Although most of these cookie cutters have got to be unclipped hatchery fish. Mine ranged from 10 to 28 pounds with most around the 15 pound range. On a sad note....I was forced to watch one bleeding like a pig 15 pound king sink to the bottom belly up. What a waste. I still very much disagree with the direction of this fishery. I highly doubt you will be able to ever keep an unclipped fish again at Sekiu. It's a transfer of wild fish to the commercials (which includes the tribes). Also, it seems to be a blatant bias towards small boat fishermen since you can keep the same fish at Neah Bay (shouldn't area 4 have already reached it's quota and been closed? Sekiu lasted 4 days last year). Also, with the pojected 3rd largest hatchery king return ever in the Columbia, 220,000, why isn't the ocean required to release non-clipped? Lastly, people are saying "won't this be great if they can get the percentage of clipped to non-clipped up? Is that really the direction we want to go? To have a large percentage of the fish in the salt be hatchery? Something really stinks here and it ain't the fish in my boat.

Not sure what is going on here, must be karma from all my releasing of "native" springers on the Columbia, but I've put in 3 days at Sekiu, landed 7 kings, and 6 of them were clipped . This is definately bucking the trend, everyone I talked to was releasing more like 10 to 1. On the minus side, most have been 8 pounders with one 13. But hey, they fight like hell at that size and sure taste good, so I'm not complaining :p

I agree with spawnout, had friends that fished the PA area and they got 5 keepers for 3 people and only had to release one. It would be nice if the keepers were a little bigger though. Think maybe they travel in schools and you just have to hit the clipped school that is heading to the hatchery? Thats my logic!


NEN

Sekiu gets 10 times the pressure as Neah bay, and neah has a 26" minimum size limit. I'm not sure on the exact numbers but I think the quota is bigger at Neah too. No way is this an attack on small boat owners. You can fish a smaller boat at Neah, you just cant always take it out into the ocean. If you watch the marine forecasts daily, you'll see that the central strait (sekiu/PA) has a lot more small craft advisories than the west entrance (neah). Nearly every afternoon the wind picks up in the central strait and it gets bumpy. Most people just dont like the extra half hour on that crappy road out to the reservation.

If you watch, the area 6 fishery will close before the big fish show because everyone is keeping 8lb blackmouth... There are a lot of them and they are easy to catch.

Area 4 has the right idea in raising the minimum size....

As far as the hatchery/wild fish question.... in a perfect world everyone would like to see all wild fish. It isn't a perfect world I'm afraid....

Anyone know what the King count is as far as the quota goes?

The minimum size was raised in areas 1 through 4 which is a direct target of large native fish. Yet area five is restricted to small clipped fish. I still haven't heard any justification for the discrepency. Yes puget sound stocks need to be protected but there are stocks in Columbia tributaries that are even more endangered (ie. Snake river fish).

Sekiu was slow Friday through Sunday. Caught a few nice kings, but they had too many fins. Pulled the boat out and trailered it up to Neah Bay. It was a good move.

We fished just inside of Tatoosh and once we found the fish nobody drove the boat for an hour and a half while we had endless doubles and triples. We have no idea how many we caught yesterday. Punched out with 6 silvers and 3 pinks for the boat. One bigger clipped silver, about 7lb+, the rest were 3 lb'ers. Release one nice silver over 8lbs. The hit everything.

Pinks galore! Sekiu should be hot in about a week or two, just in time for the 4 fish a day limit.

Do u have to run far for the fish at Neah Bay? I"ll be using one of those 16ft rentals witha 15 HP and wont be able to travel to far for the fish.

Alot of fish are caught just outside Neah in the rips that form off Waadah Island. I think Tatoosh is about 5 miles from Neah.

I think Elkrun is pretty much right on in his assessment. People are keeping blackmouth in areas 5 and 6 using up the quota with 5-8# fish. It is possible to retain a nice sized Chinook that is clipped. Neah Bay or area 4 is a totally different fishery and the way the season is set up is almost totally a result of the Makah tribe's demands at North of Falcon. The Makah trollers are working out in the ocean and in the straits every day and the liberal season for sports fishing is a boon to the town of Neah Bay and the tribes.

By the way, the hottest fishing is 12-20 miles offshore and it is no place for a small kicker boat. The area inside Tatoosh to Sail Rock is really an excellent and safe fishery.

The fishery in area 4 have a "guideline of 3,900 Chinook. I don't know for sure yet what a guideline is compared to a quota but my guess is that the Makahs will call the shots on any closure. The Skagway Rocks area should just be starting to turn on this weekend and bigger fish should be available.

I still haven't heard a valid explanation or the reasoning behind why the ocean is open to killing wild fish while the strait is not. Can't find it on WDFW site either. Anyone?

My understanding through talking w/ the people in charge at WDFW is that many of the fish that are caught in area 4 are Columbia Rv. fish and not Endangered Puget Sound fish. I assume this data is off past Coded Wire Tag recoveries, but not positive, does not make alot of sence, but I have heard it from many people. Why we are alowed to kill wild CR fish and maybe OR fish, I'm not sure.
I may only have part or the story, I to think there is a tribal factor involved.

NEN

Grandpa had it right when he told you that the Makah's have a big say in the North of Falcon process as to what the season will be in area 4.

But I am not talking about just area 4. Areas 1 though 4 (the entire ocean) have catch and kill on native kings. The snake river, last I heard, has even more endangered runs than PS. Plus the CR is projected to have it's third largest hatchery return ever. So where's the logic?

If you go to the North of Falcon meetings [ where they set salmon quotas and seasons] you would see there is very little logic involved.

Stlhead,
I believe, and I could be wrong it does happen a lot, that most of the Snake River Chinook are Spring and Summer Chinook and the fish that are being targeted now in areas 1-4 are fall Chinook that spawn in the lower river and lower tribs up to Hanford reach, which is still healthy. I do not know what the clipped rate is for fall chinook on the columbia, but I do not think that it is very high, therefore most fish would be released anyway.

NEN

i fished Sekiu thursday and fridayand got into around 80 salmon , mostly coho around 2.5 to 4 lbs...Around 20 of those fish were kings of which a half dozen were legal size but all natives...biggest one was around 10 lbs...i didnt see many keeper kings being caught....the ticket was 8 oz wt with plug cut herring with around 100 ft of line out...Mousilini pt was the hot spot and the caves early in the morning...cant wait to get back there

At this web site, http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/creel/puget/ your can keep track of fish counts at the docks.
And by divideng the total number of fish caught by the numbers of anglers, you can get a decent estement on the chance of cating a fish even down the the type. For the week of the 7-13 at Sekiu, fishermen had a chance of around 40% of cating a fish. I keep track of this on Power Point and set up charts to see when the peak of the run is ( the highest percentage). I keep track of Everett, Sekiu, Pt. Difiance, and The Hood Cannel.

[edit] The numbers shown on this site are only the fish kept by fishermen and not ones that they released.

Fished Sekiu Saturday. The water was like glass, and the fish have moved east from Neah Bay. The morning hours were the best, with about 60% of our fish being caught in the first three hours of the day. We punched a total of 6 silvers and one pink after 10 hours on the water, with about 40 fish brought to the boat, and at least 20 more on for some period of time. Only caught 3 pinks, but the hatchery to native ratio on the silvers was pretty good at about 1:5.

The kings gave us a wide berth, with only one probable hooked. (I took off with a nice 80 yard run, then unbuttoned.) Only saw a few kings at the cleaning station.

We did see a number of halibut landed, with to fish over 40lbs, and one boat with a couple of fish in the low teens.

My 4 year old got his first salmon in the salt, a scrappy 3lb hatchery silver.

Andy

I am going to be heading out there tomorrow morning early. We have been doing well on hooking kings but just not the hatcheries. The first 2 i caught we hatcheries and the last 15 have been natives:( We had to realease about a 35 and a 25 last weekend.

fj15- DORK

Headin back over there for Friday and Saturday. If it's anything like it was 2 weeks ago I'll be in heaven. Gotta get back to sail rock for some more bottom fish as well...yummy!!!

Just found out that I'm a proud poppa to be (first one), so I gotta get out while I still can.