My wife and I are sailing the San Juans this August and have purchased our licenses online. Our goal is to land dinner daily but although we have fished the world,we've never had the honor of fishing your waters. We would appreciate any and all advice on what equipment to bring, bait/lures and depths and general location so we don't starve or worse yet go to the grocery store! The sailboat pulls about 5-7 knots so is trolling an option? Thanks to our Northern Brothers.

I think 5-7 knots is plenty fast to troll!

Well, you have to tell us what kind of fish you want to catch!

Thanks for the reply... Salmon would be the first choice and if the different varieties need different bait/lures then the most plentiful or best eating would be the info we are looking for. Depth, distance offshore or between islands and techniques would help. We understand that Halibut season it's not...too bad...but any other tasty fish advice would be welcome. We also have 2 crab pots so advice along those lines also. We really appreciate the time for you to respond, especially since we're damn Californians!

You might want to go the Home page and see what information Bob has for just the NW area.
Plug in SanJuan under seach and see what's there.
Is the Del Ray Fish House still around? We used to eat there alot when we visited your part of the world.
Sounds like your planning a great trip..

Another good site with lots of info is www.salmonuniversity.com Also you can use the search feature here (Button on the upper right of the screen). Lots have been written about setups that will definately catch salmon anywhere!!!
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff

Beach Shack,
The answers to your questions could be wide open, but I will give you a couple of ideas on what to try for different types of fish. Also, Jeffhead's advice on checking out Salmon University is good advice. The site as detailed info on salmon fishing and may have some info on areas.

Crabbing:
Generally 75 of water or less. Look for other crab pots. For bait I use chicken, turkey and fish heads/carcusses.

Bottom Fish:
Look for bottom structure on your charts and/or sounder. Drop you lure down till it hits bottom, crank up a few turns and then jig up and down. Check to make sure you are close to bottom often. Lures I'd recommend: Lead/metal bodied jigs (3"-6") in white or white/green. Lead head worm jigs. With these the jig head/hooks are sold separately from the rubber worm bodies. I buy lead heads in the 1-3oz size and buy the twin tail jig bodies in white, black, yellow and motor oil colors.

Kings Salmon:
I would use your white jigs if trying for kings, but would work all different depths in addition to the bottom.

Silvers and Pinks:
If you want to troll, you will mostly like hit silvers and pinks. The basic setup would be a reasonably stout rod with 20 lb line, a deep diver six (or 6-8oz banana sinker) followed by a green glow hotspot flasher and either a spoon, hoothie, bait or grand slam bucktail. For details on all these items check out the salmon university website.

Finally, you can use the search feature on this website to answer a lot of the questions you might have.

Good luck on your adventure.

La Jolla eh?

I used to surf at Marine St when I was in the Navy. Been a few years since I was back in SD. I unfortunately can't offer much advice for fishing the San Juans. But this is a pink year, So I imagine there will be plenty of salmon around then. Don't know how well they'd eat though.

For bottom fish nothing beats a mooching rig ( two hooks on the same line) with chunks of hering and a 2-4oz. banana sinker.

For salmon try jigging buzzbombs, crippled herring, and point wilson dart jigs. Colors green, flo. green, white, silver, and pink. Esp. pink for the Pink Salmon.