I'm thinking of heading out on Saturday to avoid the Sockeye crowds. I know it opened today. Did anyone give it a shot and can you give a report?
Thanks,
Brian

Hi Brian,
I did a llittle beach fishing this morning on Bush Point.

I saw A LOT of bait in the water, about a dozen dog fish just feeding on the surface for a good hour, and a few decent size fish jumping.

I left by 6:30 a.m. for work and I had a shaker follow my lure to the beach and the guy next to me released a shaker. I don't thik it picked up much and the 2 boats I saw had only dog fish.

The water was dead flat and calm with no fog for the first time in a few days.

I'd give Useless bay a shot if it's not too far of a run for you. Try the southern shoreline, near the pilings. Keep an eye out for Sockeye all along that side of Whidbey!

Good Luck,
Jeff

Fished the beach at PNP Saturday from ~3:50-6:50PM. Lots of bait jumping. No sea gulls feeding. Pretty good tidal rip out there. Tons of seaweed on the incoming tide. As it approached high tide, seaweed started clearing out a bit. Lost one due to either inadequate hookset, lack of sufficient pressure, incorrect drag setting, or hook being spit by fish. Used a modified buzz bomb set up. Saw one herring fisherman lose one close to shore. Nobody else got any. Didn't see any boats get any either. Only a handful of boats out there. Warm and sunny day.

OK Rockhopper, what's the modified buzz bomb set-up?

I've been going to try elkrun's tips from last summer, but have not taken the time to do it.

His tips were to use a colored hook and then cut the BB in half so it seperates as it drops.

What is your mod?

They seem to work pretty dam good right out of the package, but I'm always up for trying something that will make the old timers shake their head and laugh at me

I fished PNP Friday morning and evening. Heard that somebody CNR a small Chinook early Friday morning and I saw about half dozen small coho CNR. I saw a couple coho hooked from boats, one caught from a guide boat looked to be around 8 lb as I saw it jump after it was hooked. Lots of sculpin and sole. Pretty windy in the early evening. My wife showed up in the boat and I waded out to the boat to fish and saw alot of small fish and checked the depths and fish on our depth finder. Saw a couple of 5-7 lb coho caught early in the evening. I finally got a little one buzz bombing from the beach just before dark.

Fished most of the day on Saturday and didn't see or hear of any salmon caught and just a few bites. Lots of seaweed. Saturday evening the baitfish began to jump but they are actually smolt and we released the ones that were snagged. Lots of people enjoying the beach and lots of dogs. This one dog watches you as you reel in and then goes to the next fisherman. A real fish dog.

Hopefully the fish will start to show in a couple of weeks.

We fished out on Possession Bar and CR two dogfish and CR one keeper size Chinook. Other than that, we had a few takedowns without hooking up. The Chinook we caught on a Chartreuse and White spoon behind and rotating type flasher near the bottom in 85 ft of water. We marked lots of bait on the East side of Possession Bar. There were some bait and fish at around 60 ft. Moving our gear to that depth didn't help.

Crabbing was slow. We average a couple per pull with only the Red Rock crabs big enough to keep although we didn't keep any.

I fished Sunday morning from 5:15 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. at Bush Point.

There was a lot of bait, some nice big bait balls, lots of dog fish feeding on the surface, and quite a few nice size fish jumping along the shoreline. There were 4 of us fishing a stretch of beach with buzz bomb type lures and the most any of us could come up with was small 12" shakers. (CR)

There was a big humpy landed down there on the low slack yesterday around noon, and I suspect the other salmon I am seeing are Sockeye. Sure wish one would take my lure!

Good Luck on the other side of the water!
Jeff

Fellas,
Thanks for the info. Ended up not going as the inlaws showed up for the weekend.
I had a buddy fish of the beach at PNP and saw only one 7 lb blackmouth caught. He said he caught a ton of shakers and there was lots of bait around.
Brian

My wife and kids got some crab out in Indianola Saturday evening and left the pots in overnight. We took her dad out Sunday morning to check the traps and decided to take our rods along. Stopped by Kingston to pick up some more bait since we forgot some. I hiked up to Thriftway for bait while they went to the going out of business sale at Kingston Nautical supply. My wife picked up a swivel Scotty downrigger mount on sale and dad picked up some buzz bombs for $1.19 each. I stopped by on the way back to pick some up too. We set the traps up by Eglon and fished PNP for a couple of hours. Kind of fun working the rip and eddy in the afternoon. Dad picked up a perch but no salmon. Saw fish on the finder but I think we are picking up seaweed. Still need to figure the thing out. Pulled the pots and got some nice Dungeness and some rock crab we threw back. Sure was a nice day on the water.

Anybody got any new reports? Was planning on going out Thursday and Friday.... Was thinking crabbing by shipwreck and fishing possession.

I guess I can only crab fri-mon so Thursday it'll just be fishing.

Help would be appreciated...

I'll be heading out tonight to my honey hole for the first time this season, will let you know how the fishing is.

area nine is open for crab everyday as far as I can see from looking at the regs. you can go south of the ship wreck or off of useless bay an give them a try.

Okay....Right you are. South of Shipwreck it is. And then fishing!!!! How about any reports??????