Neah Bay- last day 6/28/19

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The last day run, the water was still as nice as could be and we pushed back west from Neah Bay to a new spot that looked very ‘fishy’ to me on the charts. My hunch turned out to be a good one as within seconds of the first drop of the rod, Mike was into a fish. The kids were bored of staying the cuddy and the sun was out, they decided to watch us fish. Since the action was so good and suddenly fishing was “FUN”.

One of the most amazing take downs that I caught on video. While some folks argue that using electric reels is not fishing, I dis-agree. For this type of fishing we sometimes filter through 30-40 fish before we come up with the ones we want to keep since the limit is 1 fish per license. In this case since it was the very first fish and catch for my boys, while their fish I’d probably would have released, decided to harvest it since it was their first.

My oldest had a blast with the AFTCO bonker, as I told him it was like a Pinata. Halibut Pinata and to hit it square between the eyes! HAHA

We took a detour to show Mike and the boys Tatoosh island, the secret Pirate caves, and saw tons of wild life. 

Back home, we turned the driveway into fish camp and spend the next day processing 14 halibut, 6 kinds, 3 Sablefish, and 1 very large arrowtooth flounder. All in all the most memorable trip that hopefully my kids will want to return back to someday.

Neah Bay: bonus Halibut 6/27/19

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Overnight, it rained but the winds and marine forecast was still the same. The kids didn’t have rain gear, and we were a little soggy, but the sun did come out mid morning and the rain subsided around 13:00.

Fishing Swiftsure bank with the Cruise ship in the shipping lane behind us.

We made quick work of the halibut and then decided to convert to the King troll. We must have been too deep, but once we raised the downriggers to 100′ the action started happening. The starboard side rod went off, with red racer flasher and 4.0 Irish Creme spoon. I had Mike take it and it was FISH ON!

My big king, estimated to be around 24# on the same spoon combination. One of the best fights and true knuckle busting episodes that I can recall on Swiftsure bank.

Back at dock with the bounty. While we were 4 short of the limit, the kids were getting tired and we had to muster enough energy, clean fish, and make dinner for the last and final day.

Back at camp, the place filled up with campers and RV’s. Like everyone showed up for a rock concert.

Halibut Fish Tacos next to the campfire, oh so nice!

Neah Bay: Canadian Swiftsure 6/26/19

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The kids finished school a week ago and I had our sights set on making a trip to Neah Bay to fish for Halibut since the WDFW announced a few bonus openers for the bottom dwelling flat fish.  The stars, moon, tide and weather all aligned up nicely to make the run west.

Timing was also excellent as my good buddy Mike R. was able to make the trip out from Colorado to spend a few days catching up and fishing alongside. We rolled into the cabin the day prior to get the camper on the truck, boat loaded, and gear assembled and readied.  An al fresco dinner of pizza was just what the kids and I needed!

We had reservations at The Cape, located walking distance to the marina. Made some friends with ‘Fluffy, Butler, and Moocher’ the yellow lab. Not their real names, but the kids had a good imagination.

The marine conditions were perfect with a 3-4 swell at 12 seconds and very little to no wind. GO TIME!!!

Making the turn around Waadah island, it was flat as a pancake and looking at the Green Can just outside the harbor.

We witnessed a bunch of whales feeding on the bank, this one got close enough to shoot. While in the audio, I mention it was a Humpback. It was a grey whale. Everyone got a big kick out of the other wildlife including Bald Eagles, Dall Porpoise, Seals and Sea Lions, birds. The kids still liked the camp dogs the best.

 

Mike, with his first hook up and first halibut ever, he was all smiles!

 

 

The kids were pretty tired from the early morning wake up, both spent alot of time inside the cuddy sleeping and or snacking.

Back at dock with our 4 Canadian fish

Chris M. made quick work of filleting these guys dockside and we chunked off a piece to make butter poached on the BBQ grill. So yummy!

Columbia River Shad: 6/14/19

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The last time I fished for Shad was 4 years ago. Time sure does fly by when you have kids and busy with life. I had heard from Mark Yuasa that this years run was projected to beat the record run of over 6.1M fish that came through the Columbia river in 2018.  I checked the fish counts and like to visit the John Day dam when the counts exceed 3 Million Shad as counted at Bonneville.

While there isn’t a stat for the John Day for Shad one can get a good idea of how the run is doing based on the numbers through Bonneville Dam. I wanted to organize a trip with my sons now aged 9 and 7 and my dad since it was Father’s Day weekend. We recently replaced our beloved Chevy hightop conversion van with a GMC Savanna conversion van and wanted to also road trip with the new rig.

The drive via I-90 was OK after the slow Friday evening rush hour and construction traffic from North Bend to Snoqualmie Pass. The mileage to John Day is 222 mile from my house and it took us around 4 hours to get there. Its a long drive, but I always appreciate and enjoy the scenery and time on the road with the landscape of rolling hills, wide open spaces, and the smell of sagebrush in the spring air.

We rolled into the dam road about 9 pm and you can see Mt. Adams off in the distance. It was pretty windy, so I was concerned about how we’d set up camp and if it was going to be a factor for fishing the next morning. 

After a quick bite of Cup-O-Noodles and setting up the van awning and the kids tent we were off to bed. Joe H. David and his son Charlie K arrived around 11 pm we finally had a little quiet and slept for 5 hours. Chris M. also made the drive out but took I-5 and then highway 14 as he was planning to fish the Kalama on the way back. 

Pictured is the ‘new’ to us van. She doesn’t look like much outside, but has a full Explorer conversion inside. I made a platform bed with gear storage underneath, and installed a new ARB Touring 2500 series awning. This thing is worth its weight in gold when its hot and the sun is shining. 

I was the first to wake up and was on the river before my friends roll out of camp. I had 3 shad to the bank and when I noticed David up, he was smiling as he scampered on his clothes to grab his rod and run down to the water edge to join me. You can see Joe to the left, Chris in the middle and Charlie to the right. We had a nice section of river to ourselves for the day. 

It took a while for the guys to figure out the drift and technique, but once they did, it was automatic hook up after hook up. You can see Charlie, aged 11 fighting and landing his first of many Shad.

Mr. Moyer did well too, landing not only Shad but a small mouth bass and a sucker both on a fly that he tied himself and used as an attractor top bug. He was shocked to know those fish were hitting on the small lead jigs with the gold hooks. 

We were fortunate the winds were calm and able to cast with no issues. The 1/16 oz weights were perfectly suited to get the jigs into the strike zone. I only wished that I started fly fishing at the beginning of the day versus at the end of it as the action is definitely better in the mornings. I did fish for an hour or so with the fly rod, but was a bit under gunned. I had a 5 wt rod with integrated sink tip, but I think my 10′ 6 wt would have been better suited for casting the heavy tips. While I didn’t land any shad, I did connect with a sucker and the pull was pretty good and put a nice bend in the fly rod. 

David K. pictured above working the seam and Joe H. with a good example of typical size shad. There were some jumbo fish in the 2-3# class, nice fighters and a few of them had some good leaps.

Taking a break under the 92 degree desert sun. I made a side privacy and extra sun guard from a 5×7′ piece of tarp with yellow poly rope taped down with duct tape. It fit perfectly inside a grooved channel that the ARB awning has for a Lean To insert accessory they sell.

We filled up two coolers with Shad which was plenty enough for crab and halibut bait for our future trips to the Hood Canal, Puget Sound and to Neah Bay. 

We stopped by Union Gap on the way back for a take out of Asparagus tamales from Los Hernandez and a visit to the food court at Fiesta Foods. Its like walking into Mexico with a wide selection of ethnic foods. The $13 Carnitas Family Special was nice with 1# of carnitas, 1# of Refried Beans, 1# of Arroz (Rice) 2 dozen tortillas and fresh tomatillo. 

If I return, I’ll try fly fishing earlier, but I didn’t bring waders and the morning was cool. I was wet wading in my swim trunks and sandals, but it was 90+ degrees by then and was actually nice to cool down in the river while making my casts and starting at Mt. Adams in the distance. We’re heading back to Neah Bay next week with my kids, their first time out there to fish, so it will be an interesting trip, but looking forward to it! Tight Lines everyone.

Edmonds Spot Prawn: May 15th, 2019

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The second and final day that WDFW allowed for Spot Prawn in Area 9 fell on Humpday. We had heard of good reports from our friend David K. and was fortunate to have the invited along with Jason T. to join him for a morning of shrimping.

Pretty calm conditions, but lots of boats out and especially our drop zone just 10 minutes away from the marina.

We marked healthy clouds of shrimp deeper, but had dropped in around 320′ of water just beyond the edges/contours on the bathymetric.

Armed with soy sauce, we were smacking our chops in hopes of bountiful limits.

This pot probably had over 160 spot prawns in it! Just loaded up but the overall size was smaller than I’d seen in Hood Canal.

We boiled some up using David’s alcohol stove, a little dipping sauce and some cold beers was good stuff!

Hood Canal Amaebi: 5/11/19

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This year, I was able to make the Hood Canal spot prawn opener. Its typically scheduled for the first Saturday in May, but that conflicted with our Neah Bay trip. However, due to extreme tides the WDFW had postponed this until the following week. I had invited Joe H. and Sun Y. to join me and my sons to try to find these tasty prawns.

Joe brought some steaks and we enjoyed them the night before.  We got the boat into the slip and gear loaded. I had made bait 5 days prior and had some frozen stuff from last season that I mixed into the que.

Nice weather, flat seas and a quick run to the drop zone about 30 minutes from the cabin. 

WDFW only allows for a 4 hour window, the hood canal or A12 is open for spot prawning from 9 am to 1 pm. We were able to get to my location and surveyed the bottom and could clearly see the clouds of prawns on the hard rocky bottom in about 200′ of water. Here is the photo of my pot line while we were bringing it up and you can see the turquoise colored schools.

Success! 5 limits in fairly short order. We are going to eat well!

Happy with limits and heading back to port to clean up, pack up and enjoy the harvest with our families.