I just returned from an 8 day trip to Neah Bay. The boat has been there all summer and I've been out most weekends. This past week was my annual one week fishing trip. Sorry I didn't take any pictures but in brief, fishing has been fantastic out there this year. Kings have been plentiful and decent size, coho are plentiful but seem a bit small this year. Until Aug 10, we were allowed two kings/person/day and I lost count of how many fish in the 18-25 lb range that we brought to the boat. It's been over 15 for sure. Most coho have been in the 4-6lb range but we have started to find bigger ones - mostly by fishing a good bit deeper for them (like 100-150' down).
This past week we fished everyplace from Swiftsure Bank to Compass Rose (an area about 25mi SW of Tatoosh). Swiftsure was mostly putting out smaller kings (8-12 lbs) but we did get a couple of 20's off of there on Monday. Tues/Wed we did a 2-day trip offshore to fish for tuna and to watch the Persied Meteor showers. We saw lots of meteors, many interesting sea creatures at night when I left a spot light pointing down in the water for 20-30 mins, a huge pod of hundreds of Pacific white sided dolphins (many hundreds, I've never seen a pod so large), but after 110 miles of continuous trolling, only managed to hook one single albacore. Thurs-Sat were good fishing. We did Swiftsure on Thurs and Fri but couldn't scare up a king larger than about 10lbs even after picking though 8 or so fish per person. Sat we hit Compass Rose and got two kings right at 20lbs ea. + our limits of coho. The freezer is nearly full but I have a few more trips left this summer and I WILL have a good tuna trip before the season is over.
I saw Ken of Cavu out there. He'd been out for 3 weeks and had been doing well. I also saw a number of other C-Dory's out there - a green 22 with a yellow Alaskan series dingy was leaving yesterday AM. I also saw a blue 22 named Storm Chaser out there a few weeks ago and some other 16 (unnamed) this past week.
I'll be out there again Labor Day weekend and hope to have weather conducive to a tuna trip then. If not, hopefully the king season won't be closed down and for sure the coho will be larger then.
This past week we fished everyplace from Swiftsure Bank to Compass Rose (an area about 25mi SW of Tatoosh). Swiftsure was mostly putting out smaller kings (8-12 lbs) but we did get a couple of 20's off of there on Monday. Tues/Wed we did a 2-day trip offshore to fish for tuna and to watch the Persied Meteor showers. We saw lots of meteors, many interesting sea creatures at night when I left a spot light pointing down in the water for 20-30 mins, a huge pod of hundreds of Pacific white sided dolphins (many hundreds, I've never seen a pod so large), but after 110 miles of continuous trolling, only managed to hook one single albacore. Thurs-Sat were good fishing. We did Swiftsure on Thurs and Fri but couldn't scare up a king larger than about 10lbs even after picking though 8 or so fish per person. Sat we hit Compass Rose and got two kings right at 20lbs ea. + our limits of coho. The freezer is nearly full but I have a few more trips left this summer and I WILL have a good tuna trip before the season is over.
I saw Ken of Cavu out there. He'd been out for 3 weeks and had been doing well. I also saw a number of other C-Dory's out there - a green 22 with a yellow Alaskan series dingy was leaving yesterday AM. I also saw a blue 22 named Storm Chaser out there a few weeks ago and some other 16 (unnamed) this past week.
I'll be out there again Labor Day weekend and hope to have weather conducive to a tuna trip then. If not, hopefully the king season won't be closed down and for sure the coho will be larger then.
