A friend and I are headed to Westport in the morning. I noticed that the swells are 5' at 14 seconds and windwaves are 1' and supposed to stay that way tomorrow. We are heading across the bar at 5am and plan to be coming back by 10am to avoid low ebb at noon. Can someone answer a couple questions?

Where are the fish now? How far do we have to go? Our plan is to follow the charter boats.

The low ebb at noon is not very severe(2 knots). Should it still be avoided or can we fish a bit longer and come in at say 11 am? We are going out in an 18' Boston Whaler and have all the necessary safety gear.

I live in Ocean Shores and frequently fish out on the pond. The fish are still out a ways. 10 to 15 miles. There are fish in closer but few and far between. Charters have been heading way north. We followed them the other day and probably went 15 west, 10 miles north. Good luck and with a low of 1.6 coming off a 6.9 high you shouldn't have any trouble coming back before max ebb. Avoid max ebb period, but I would think you could come back in during the start of ebb, or low slack without troulbe.

Let me know how you do

Thanks for the info. We are heading out now. I'll let you know how we do.

Success, although we didn't find any kings. At 5:30am we headed NW for 8 miles and with no one in sight decided to fish and wait to see where the charters would go when they got out. We immediately hit fish. Kept three and then it went cold. At 8am we decided to track the charters down and found them on our way back in! They were closer in today. We trolled near them and whammo --

The three of us limited on hatchery coho and were off the water by 10:30am. The biggest coho was 9lbs, two were in the 6 range and the other three were smaller.

We talked to a few other fishermen and it doesn't sound like the chinook are in like the coho. One boat said they went out 25 miles yesterday and found some chinook...... Too far for us, so we decided to be happy with the abundant coho. The native to hatchery ratio was probably 50-50.

Best lure was a glow B-2 with hotspot. I used a Baitbuster and hit plenty of fish and it was nice to battle the smaller coho without the flasher.

The water wasn't flat but it was relatively comfortable. I'm sure you all know this buoy site, but it is the greatest for weather at Westport. http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.phtml?=46041

Get out there and get em!

Thanks for the timely report!