Fishing with SeaDNA at Neah Bay

[Pat Anderson]

OK, on Friday August 10 I drove from Snoqualmie to Neah Bay to fish with Roger on SeaDNA. Left Snoqualmie at noon, just an hour to Edmonds. Missed the first ferry at Edmonds by minutes, so it was an hour and a half later before I was on the next ferry to Kingston. The road to Neah Bay beyond Port Angeles, SR 112, well, if you know the road to Hana on Maui but make it 60 miles long, you will have the picture. Arrived in Neah Bay six and a quarter hours after setting out from Snoqualmie! Roger shared a bottle of some tasty claret on board, and we had a nice dinner at the Warm House restaurant (hint - if you want your steak medium rare at the Warm House, order it RARE!).

Neah Bay is the center the Makah Indian Tribe's universe. You need a recreational permit from the Tribe to park there, $10 cash no credit cards. I am sorry I did not have a little longer there to wander around and take a few pix. Maybe next time.

Up at 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning, and we were shortly joined by Roger's friend Barney from Portland. Roger guaranteed we would catch salmon, and I wondered how anybody could guarantee that!

Out of Neah Bay, around Cape Flattery and Tatoosh Island, where the scenery is really spectacular!




Roger KNOWS where the fish are here. He says he could catch more here in a day than he could catch in a season in Puget Sound. Why? Well, the Strait of Juan de Fuca is kind of the "salmon superhighway," and Neah Bay sits right at the entrance from the Pacific Ocean - they just can't get to any spawning stream without passing through here! We caught and released quite a few wild coho. And it really did not take long before the three of us had our six coho in the boat! Roger bled them out immediately and they went in the fish box on ice.



We then turned our attention to getting some bottom fish. These guys are quite easy to catch, and I'm sure we would have had our limit if we had stayed a bit longer, but it was getting late and we were getting tired! Fishing wears a guy out! Along the way I did a bit of damage to Roger's gear, he was most gracious...



As soon as we got back, we stopped in at the fish cleaning station, where for a pretty nominal amount, Ralph, a diminutive Indian gentleman, will fillet your catch for you! I am VERY sorry I did not have my camera out while Ralph was working his magic, it was buried in my bag on board. Better yet a video - this would be quiet the instructional video. Deft, no wasted motion - poetry in motion!

Roger then proceeded to vacuum pack the fillets - he has his Food Saver Pro II on board, doesn't everybody? :lol:




Roger divided up the catch, and my share was carefully packed in a cooler with layers of ice and rock salt. As predicted, it was nicely frozen when I got back home.

I understand Larry Q is up next, he will be coming up 101 I suppose and take SR 113 down to Neah Bay. He is in for a treat! Thank you, Roger, for a most memorable day!

 

[gljjr]

Congrats on the fish Pat! Roger definitely knows that area! Looks like the ocean laid down for you too. What a treat! I'm hoping I can get out there again next year. This year I'm staying close to home while I work on the boats.

There is also method to Rogers madness. By processing his fish and vacuum packing it he get's to have more on the boat than his daily limit.

Ralph is a fish filleting machine! He is one of the BEST features of Neah Bay when you come into the dock with a boat load of rock fish! Last time I went rock fish fishing, I had my son Justin with me. Ralph actually took the time to explain how to do the filleting to Justin as he was whipping through our catch. He got a nice tip in the process Seeing it done and actually having the skill to do it are two different things though! I still hate Filleting fish!

 

[416rigby]

Looks like you guys had a blast...we sure miss the salmon!

 

[colvosview]

Peter of C-Dancer and I accepted Roger's invitation last year, and I can only add a hearty "second" to everything that Pat says.

 

[rogerbum]

Tues Aug 14th - I was joined by Larry Q (C'Ya) and Pavel a fellow who works for me. We pushed off the dock about 5:30 fueled up and headed to "Blue Dot" a spot that is about 25 miles WSW of Tatoosh Island. It was a long run out but the water was pleasant (3' swells, 8s, 5MPH wind). Ran at about 14-15kts. Wanted to see if I could find a king salmon.

Slowed the boat down and try to deploy the first rod on the down rigger. The line was in the water for maybe 20-30s and it was fish-on! Handed it off to Pavel (a Czech) and he soon landed his first salmon a 7-8# hatchery coho. Bonked it and put it in the box. Went to set lines again and once again another coho hit the fit line out before I could clip it on the down rigger. I bring this one in and it's another nice hatchery coho - bonked and in the box. Line goes out, gets hit immediately again and it's a wild coho. This keeps up for about an hour with a number of wild ones released and eventually we get 2 for Pavel, 2 for Larry and 1 for me. Occasionally during the mayhem, I am able to get a line through the coho and down to a depth that might select for a king (150' to 220'). Never found a king and eventually the bit slows down. We pull lines up to about 30' and after a few wilds find another nice hatchery coho for me. Another day, another limit of salmon for all aboard.

Wed. Aug 15th - Just me an Larry today so we decide to do a combo salmon bottom fishing trip. As we leave, I tell Larry that my goal is to limit on Salmon AND bottom fish and be back on the dock at noon. To do that, I plan to find the coho closer in and then run down to Cape Alava for bottom fish. We run about 4 miles SW of Tatoosh and start to fish the E end of the canyon. Fishing is OK with about one salmon every 5-8 mins but many are wild and most are smaller than yesterday. After about an hour, on fish in the box and 6-8 released, I decide to pull up and run a few more miles west to Table Top - a plateau that is about 8 miles WSW of Tatoosh.

The fishing was better there early and we found a couple of very nice hatchery coho (8#'s or so), However, putting the 4th coho in the box takes awhile with an bad streak of long distance releases and wild fish. By around 10:30 we have our limits of coho. It's clear the goal of being back by noon with salmon and bottom fish is no longer attainable. We run down to Cape Alava and arrive there by 11:20. After 4-5 drifts, we have our limits of bottom fish, 20 rock cod, 5 kelp greenling, 2 ling cod and one cabezon. We limited by about 1:20. Back to the dock, clean 'em all up, vacuum pack the fish and wash the boat. Larry's on the road by about 4:30 or 5PM with a nice load of fish. I get showered and do a little more cleaning and reorganizing on the boat, pour myself a nice glass of wine and post this message. So far the tally for 5 days of fishing is:
Limits of salmon for everyone on every day (Sunday it was 4 pink salmon ea).
Limits of bottom fish for everyone the two days I fished bottom fish.
2.5 bottles of wine consumed (soon to be 3)
50+ hours of good camaraderie and conversation (especially with Larry who's humor closely matches mine).

Life is good.

 

[Jazzmanic]

Roger,

Sorry I missed fishing with you at Neah Bay this year. Just bad timing I guess. It sounds like you lived up to your motto again this year which is, "I always catch my limit".

Way to go on another successful Neah Bay fishing vacation! :thup

Peter
C-Dancer

 

[rogerbum]

Yesterday was my last day at Neah Bay. The weather was predicted to get a little iffy on Fri. so we pushed off the dock at 5AM in the hopes that we could get out and in before it got bad. Swells of 4' at 6s + 25kt S. winds was the prediction but in the AM it wasn't that bad - maybe 15kt winds. Still the water was a bit lumpy and occasionally we would stumble around a bit when the wind and waves hit us right. One of the stumbles resulted in a piece of 1/2" starboard being broken off my fillet table. No big deal, it's a piece I made to stabilize the table so I can make another one. Might make it a bit bigger to reduce the risk of breakage in the future.

We ran out to the center of table top (8 miles WSW of Tatoosh) and deployed our gear - again the same thing that I have been using successfully all week - 11" green Pro Troll flashers (with the fin), 3.5" or 4" coyote spoon in the funky chicken color 36" or so behind. Dropped down to 30'. Ran a third line out the center with a 6oz banana weight and a whole herring on a Pro-Troll herring clip.

Fishing was a bit slower in the first 1.5 hours as the tide was still moving pretty good. Average catch rate was about 6 fish per hour and by around 8AM, we only had one coho in the box as we brought in a lot of wilds. However, we were trolling towards the west edge (where the fishing had been better earlier) and the tide change was coming up at 9:45. As expected, things picked up by around 8:45 and we were into the 1 fish every 3-4 mins bite that I love so much about Neah Bay. Several doubles, one tangle with the center line and 1 hour later, we had limited 3 guys with 2 silvers a piece and caught one bonus pink. That was the only pink I caught outside the straits this past week but it was a nice one - maybe 5-6 lbs. The coho were about 8lbs. It was a bit too lumpy to make bottom fishing enjoyable and I wanted to get home so we were on the docks a little before noon. Ralph filleted and we set up a little assembly line to vacuum pack the fish in single or two serving portions (cut the fillets into thirds). Lunch at the Warm Hut and on the road by about 3PM.

Overall, a very successful trip. 8 days total, 7 days of salmon fishing with 3 of those being salmon/bottom fishing trips. Limits on everything we attempted (I had to give some fish away to my guests to stay under my possession limits). I also had a nice relaxing day in the middle (Mon) during which I completed the install of my radar. 4 nices bottles of wine consumed and endless hours of fun. After 3 years of coming there and tipping him pretty well, Ralph the fish cleaner finally knows me by name - that's a small but important thing to me as I really like getting to know the folks out there and enjoy the whole atmosphere on the docks. I tipped with both cash and a few miniatures (rum and tequilla) yesterday. Ralph and his work partner David, seemed to like that better than the cash.

I'm pretty much done with my salmon fishing on the coast for the year as my schedule at work gets a bit hectic going forward but it has been a great year. With some luck, I might be able to sneak in a weekend Sekiu trip in mid to late Sept. when the coho are really big but I'll probably wind up targeting them near Edmonds. Sorry for the lack of pictures in the most recent posts. My digital camera broke in late June and I haven't gotten around to buying a new one.