After a wait of nearly a year and a half, the new edition of “John’s fishin’ book” is out. That would be the Saltwater Fishing Journal, by local tackle shop owner and piscatorial guru John Martinis.
Martinis owns John’s Sporting Goods in Everett and has spent decades fishing and boating Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands. The result of all that hard-won expertise makes his spiral-bound masterwork perhaps the best blueprint available for learning to successfully fish our local waters.
While sport fishermen at all levels of experience will find something of interest in its pages, the journal is particularly useful for beginners — those new to the area, maybe, or younger people with no one in the family to show them the ropes. Plenty of GPS waypoints for those who already know how to tempt a blackmouth or dredge up a ling, but good, solid maps and text for the less knowledgeable.
You want chinook? All the local hot spots are here, from Possession Bar through Midchannel Bank, the racetrack and the Tulalip bubble, to Baby Island/Elger Bay and beyond.
Kayak Point shore fishing for coho? Check. Humpies at the shipwreck? Check. Blackmouth in the islands at Eagle Bluff, Tide Point, Thatcher Pass, Lopez Flats? Check.
Martinis covers halibut close to home at Mutiny and Admiralty bays, and farther away on all those mysterious banks west of Whidbey Island: Dallas, Partridge, Eastern, Middle, Hein and McArthur. He does lingcod at Double Bluff and in the San Juan Islands, and tells you exactly how to do it for all that great eating.
But perhaps the strongest selling point for this latest edition of the book is the increased emphasis on crabbing and shrimping maps and how-to-rig information. Port Gardner, Mukilteo, Port Susan and Saratoga Passage crab. Edmonds and Camano Head shrimp for the early season, then up to the San Juans — maybe famous Iceberg Point on the south end of Lopez Island — to extend your season.
And remember, the proper term for fishing a shrimp trap is “soaking the pot,” and them critters ain’t spot shrimp, them is “prawns.”
The book is $24.95 at the shop, located at 1913 Broadway in Everett, or can be purchased online at www.shop.johnssportinggoods.com, postage and handling included. For more information, call 425-259-3056.
Olympic Peninsula Derby results
Not bad weather, not bad fishing. That was the word in a nutshell from the Presidents’ Day weekend salmon derby on the east end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Coordinator Dan Tatum said a total of 650 tickets were sold and 217 fish weighed in.
“That was about 100 fewer entrants than last year,” Tatum said, “but only 30 fewer chinook, so it was actually pretty good fishing. And the average size was a little bit larger.”
The $10,000 first-place blackmouth weighed 17.6 pounds and was caught by John Otness of Tacoma, in Discovery Bay, on either a Coho Killer or Kingfisher spoon. Second place went to Steve Sevilla of Discovery Bay, at 15.5 pounds, and third to David Hansen of Port Angeles at 15.3 pounds.
The top four salmon came from Marine Area 6, but Nos. 5-6 on the ladder came from Area 9, probably Midchannel Bank, at 14.65 and 14.3 pounds, respectively. The best placing for an angler from this area was second, at 11.7 pounds, by Jill Jackson of Everett.
For full derby results, go to www.gardinersalmonderby.org/results.
More derbies
Anthon Steen at Holiday Sports in Burlington said tickets for the limited-entry Anacortes Derby, set for March 31-April 1, are flyin’ outta here, and could well be sold out within a week. Give the shop a call at 360-757-4361 for the latest status report.
Tickets are now on sale for the March 17 Everett Blackmouth Derby, sponsored by the Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club. It’s a team derby, at $100 per boat of up to four anglers, and limited to 100 teams. For rules or tickets try John’s Sporting Goods, Everett Bayside Marine, Greg’s Custom Rods, Hook Line &Sinker, Ted’s Sport Center, Ed’s Surplus, Three Rivers Marine, or Performance Marine.
Tips on how to successfully fish the derby will be included in a free blackmouth seminar to be presented by John Martinis of John’s Sporting Goods at 7 p.m. on March 14 at Bayside Marine.
Women’s waterfowl seminar
Washington Outdoor Women and Ducks Unlimited cooperate to put on a day-long “Introduction to Waterfowling” workshop March 24 at a private duck club in the Snohomish Valley near Monroe. Learn duck and goose hunting traditions, ethics and conservation efforts; set decoys; call ducks; pattern a shotgun. See what it’s like to sit in a duck blind and watch an eager Labrador retrieve. A hands-on, active day covers everything except actually shooting ducks, all under the supervision of certified instructors.
The fee of $90 includes instruction, equipment, shotguns, ammunition, clays, lunch, and a Washington Outdoor Women T-shirt.
For a registration form go to www.washingtonoutdoorwomen.org; for information call Ronni McGlenn at 425-455-1986, Kristie Miller at 253-380-8966, or Joyce McCallum at 360-445-3633.
For more outdoors news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishing.
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