fishing Neah Bay

[rogerbum]

In my experience for the past many years, the coho tend to hang off the end of the straits until late in Aug/early Sept. and then blast through pretty quickly. There's an early run of small coho in the first week of July or so that you can pick up in the straits but after that, coho fishing in the straits is hit and miss until much later.

Table top is a plateau that is about 6-8 miles WSW of Tatoosh. Coho collect and feed here and it's been one of the better spots for fishing since I've been going out there. My preferred location is the NE corner in about 450' of water. There's a big canyon (1100-1200' deep) between Table Top and Tatoosh and fishing on the edges of the canyon is best. The west side of Table Top also drops off quickly and is a good place too. You'll often see the charters out on this edge. IMHO, if you're not out in the ocean, you're missing some of the best fishing this time of year. It's often nicer once you get outside than it is in the straits so don't be too afraid of going out there. You can't tell what the ocean will be like until you get about 1 mile past the entrance to the straits so don't let the water conditions right near Tatoosh influence your decision. It's often like a washing machine there especially during max current. Once you get past there, it can be flat as a pancake on the other side. Other good spots are the yellow buoy about 1mile N of Tatoosh and "Limp Spot" a location farther south (maybe 8 miles S of Tatoosh) on the edge of the canyon. Both edges of the canyon are generally good but the W edge tends to be better. You'll see the commercial trollers running up and down the edges of the canyon from Tatoosh all the way to Cape Alava.

[CAVU]

Digger,
I am skipping BC this year only because my long-time fishing buddy is away on a summer long RV trip to the east coast. Things should be back to normal next summer. I have never fished out of Poet Nook, although I have cruised over that way from Ucluelet. As I remember, it looked like a good set-up, although it would be a long drive for any last minute supplies. I haven't heard any news about BC fishing, but if the Sockeye run is still open, it would be easy to access from Poet Nook. It has been a few years but we had good luck with the sockeye fishing out of China Creek near Port Alberni. I really liked the calm flat water fishing.

Roger,
Thanks for the info. I will be there long enough to check out all the "hot spots" and maybe find a few new ones. I know what you mean about the water conditions changing once you get out in the open. We often saw the same effect fishing out of Ucluelet. Depending on the tides and winds, the pass leaving the harbor could be pretty rough and choppy until you got out in much deeper water. Hope to see you out there.

[CAVU]

Just got back from a 3 week fishing trip to Neah Bay. Fishing was generally good although we had a few days with very slow fishing. We started out with very good coho fishing the last week in July fairly close to the harbor. We had to cull about 3-4 wild fish for every hatchery. Most days we had 20-30 fish on with quite a few getting off before we got them to the boat. After the first week the coho fishing really slowed down close in. We fished the rest of the time at Swiftsure bank with some days good and some slow. Bottom fishing was good with easy limits around Umatilla Reef. Black Rockfish were easy to find along the outside shoreline south of Cape Flattery.

I hadn't been to Neah Bay in so long I had forgotten how long the runs were. Once you clear the harbor it is still 5 NM to Tatoosh and another 11 NM down to Umatilla. The run to Swiftsure is 12 NM once you clear the harbor. If you plan a trip here and are not familiar with the area use caution when returning during high current flows. Watch the tides because hugh very rough rips develop within 2 miles of the Cape and Tatoosh. This very confused water develops without any wind action. We got caught in one returning from Umatilla which was as bad as any seas I have ever been in.

All in all it was a great trip. I saw a few C-Dorys while fishing, including Quillback and SeaDNA. We also saw Patty and Barry from C-Cakes in the parking lot of QFC in Sequim. Then Harvey from the Sleepy-C also met us while we were at the QFC. Anytime you park a C-Dory anywhere for very long it draws a crowd!

[hardee]

Ken, it was good to get to chat for a few minutes. Glad you are home safe and the trip was worth it. See you next year if not before.

Harvey
SleepyC

[rogerbum]

Ken,

It was good to see you out there. Last Tues, Wed and Thurs were each worse than and other days of salmon fishing I have had at Neah Bay in the past 6 years.
Tues. we caught only 3-4 wild coho and no keepers for 3 rods out from about 6AM until 2PM. At that point I called it quits on salmon and loaded up on bottom fish at Umatilla reef ( fished on the S and W side of Ozette Island). Since the only place people were catching fish was Swiftsure, we went out there on Wed. We fished from about 9AM until 3PM in some mildly rough water and had only one good king (about 14lbs) to show for out efforts. I think we had maybe 7-8 bites all day, landed about 1/2 of them and had to throw all but the one back. So Swiftsure wasn't that great on Wed. either. Thurs. I was down to two people fishing (me + one other) and since Swiftsure wasn't that great on Wed., I went to Table top and hit it hard all day. We got two small coho for two rods in the water about 8-9 hours. Again we had a total of about 8 hits and landed about 50%. When I've been out there in Aug. for each of the previous 5-6 years, I typically get a bite every 5-8 mins with 2-3 rods in the water. Tues - Thurs were about 1 bite every hour.

Fri. I went back to Swiftsure. I was able to get a little earlier start on Fri since I was done submitting a grant (yes I was doing writing in the early AM and late PM while I was out there). We got 4 nice fish off of Swiftsure. 3 kings, 2 around 12# one around 15# and a 10# coho. Two of the kings came very early the remaining two fish took until 2:30 or so to catch. Saturday, I was back at Swiftsure one more time. We get lines in the water around 7:30 and were limited on salmon by about 8:20. We had a strong offshore flow of about 20kts and the seas were very rough on the way out (3-4' confused waves). When I turn back into the wind to run back, I could only make about 5kts without burying the bow. So I got the crap beat out of me for about 2.5 hours as I worked my way ESE. I elected to go a bit S so as to get in the shadow of Tatoosh and the mainland with the idea that I might make another run down to Umatilla reef if the seas were less confused in the lee side of the mainland. Once we got closer to land, things were much better and I made the trip to Umatilla in about 1.5-2 hours. There we limited on bottom fish (20 rockfish, 3 keeper ling cod, 1 cabezon and a few kelp greenling. So overall, a successful trip - especially the last 2 days. I left my boat out there in dry moorage so I'll be back to see of the coho run materializes.[/u]