I know Gary won't want to hear this but the fishing was slow at Sekiu and Neah Bay for all the days prior to him coming and the day he was there. HOWEVER, the next day (Mon), things picked up (of course, the day AFTER you leave - sorry).
I had two guests on Mon., a couple from work who have a 2 yr. old. The plan was to take one out at a time while the other watched the kid. Since salmon fishing had been so slow the previous 4 days, the plan was to take one to Sekiu for Salmon fishing run back to Neah Bay by 11 and take the one who could (in theory) deal with motion sickness better to bottom fishing around the corner from Tatoosh.
We got down to Sekiu and the first fish (after about 5 mins) was a nice 8lb hatchery silver - right in front of the caves. We caught a bunch of pinks (15-20?) and about 8 wild silvers. The pinks were at every depth from 50'-200'. I kept the lines low trying to pick up a king, but kept catching pinks. Eventually, I pulled one line up to 50' and still got mostly pinks but a few silvers.
Since the salmon fishing was OK, I wanted to have the other person drive to Sekiu, but there was no way to contact her. So... I ran back to Neah Bay, re-fueled and ran back to Sekiu. We caught several more fish and eventually kept another silver and filled out the rest of the limit with pinks.
Tues (8/9) was even better as I could fish Neah Bay again. I had the owner of a local wine shop (Rudy) on board. We fished off Waddah early with no luck for the first 30-45 mins. Ran 1/2 way to Tatoosh to another spot I usually catch silver at and caught about 15 pinks and a few wild silvers in 1-2 hours. Rudy had never seen so many fish get thown back in his life... Again, at all depths below 50 it was mostly pinks.
We picked up and ran out to Table top (about 5-6 miles W of Tatoosh) and again, we were picking up pinks like crazy, I was working the down riggers to all levels from 50' down to 220' trying to find kings. Again at all depths below 50' it was almost all pinks. We finally retained a couple of pinks but I didn't want to use our 2 fish limit (there are no "bonus" pinks in area 4) on just pinks. Finally, I figured out that we could catch almost all silvers if I pulled up to 35'. We filled out our limits on silvers in <1hr. The mark rate was probably about 1 fish in 4 or 5.
We then went in and fished bottom fish. It was a bit windy, and the schools of sea bass I was locating were a bit small so it was hard to keep over them. But we still picked up5 or 6 sea bass and a few kelp greenling. I also caught and released two halibut - one about 40# and one about 30# - that was fun but both fish took 20 mins or so of time out of the sea bass fishing... The smaller one took off so hard at first I thought he was going to spool me - he ran about 400' off a 900' spool before I got him stopped - I hooked him on a jig tied to the main line (60#) so I could some real pressure on. The bigger one I caught on a 25# leader with dropper loops and herring on the hooks. Since I rig those with a surgeons knot at both ends, the breaking strength is about 18-20# so I had to baby the 40# fish. Fortunately, he never nade the freight train run little guy did.
Yesterday, I decided I was going to realy target kings and the weather and swells were nice enough that I made the run out to Blue Dot (25 miles W of Tatoosh). This was a first for me - that's the farthest I've gone off shore in my boat. The run out was slow as there were 4-5' swells with a little bit of wind waves - I had to keep things around 10kts to not get too beat up. THe wind let up a bit as we got out and the swells dropped down to about 3'. I ran the lines down at 120-150' looking for kings but didn't find any. Unfortunately, by guest that day was going a bit green by the time we got out there. As a former army guy, he toughed it out for a couple of hours, but that limited the time I could fish for kings.
None-the less, the silvers we a bit bigger out there and in the process of setting the down riggers several hit on the way down and most of them were 5-8 lb hatchery fish. I retained the first two, but kept looking for kings. Eventually, we buddy said he wasn't sure he could take any more and my suggestion that he would feel better if he threw up wasn't looked on too fondly. So I pulled the lines up to 35' and we filled out the limits with silvers by 11AM - all nice fish and frankly I like silvers better than kings anyway... It would have been nice to hook a king but it wasn't required for the day to still be excellent. I didn't see hardly any kings at the fish cleaning station so I wasn't alone. However everyone who knew what they were doing (and a few who didn't) limited on silvers, the rest limited on pinks.
So - in sum, it's worth going out to Sekiu or Neah Bay now.
Roger on the SeaDNA
. The run must not be in yet so hopefully next weekend will boat some fish. This is our first year to fish Tulalip so we are still learning the bottom contours. 