Windy conditions made the first couple of days of the local winter blackmouth season a difficult proposition. Where anglers fished was more a function of getting out of the wind than where the fish might be, said Gary Krein of All Star Charters in Everett. Krein spent both Monday and Tuesday at Fox’s Spit and other spots up Saratoga Passage.
Monday – opening day of the month-long season – was good, Krein said. Tuesday, however, he had to work all day to get his fish. The reason for the slow limits, Krein said, was the large number of shakers in the area. Krein said his clients hooked and released 30 to 50 of the too-small chinook on Tuesday.
“Obviously, if you’re having to deal with that many fish in the 8- to 20-inch range (minimum legal size on blackmouth is 22 inches) you’re spending a lot of time out of the water,” he said. “There are more shakers around than I’ve seen for several years. That bodes well for next year, but it presents a definite problem for this winter.”
Krein said friends fished Possession Bar on Tuesday afternoon and did well after the wind died down.
Krein (425-252-4188) has been taking his fish on a Coyote spoon, behind a green flasher, but he tried a 5-inch plug to see if it would cut down on the number of shakers hooked.
“It seemed to work,” he said. “The plug hit one legal and three shakers, which is fewer total fish for the day than the spoons, but also a lot fewer shakers.”
Chum salmon: When local rivers drop and clear – hopefully by this weekend – chum fishing should be approaching the top of its curve, according to river guide and Arlington resident Sam Ingram (360-435-9311), and there should be lots of fish available.
The run size on the Skagit, for instance, has been upgraded and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife decided, as of Oct. 30, to allow two chum to be retained in a three-salmon limit, from the river’s mouth upstream to the mouth of the Cascade.
And the extremely popular chum beach fishery at the Hoodsport Salmon Hatchery in Hoodsport, on Hood Canal, has come on big time. Creel checks on Thursday of last week showed a handful of anglers with no fish. By Saturday, however, some 83 anglers were checked with 40 chums. How’s that for an instant fishery?
If you’ve never fished the outlet creek channel at Hoodsport, you should give it a try. It can be crowded, surely, but it’s a real circus if you approach it in the proper frame of mind. Many anglers go there deliberately to catch a couple of chums to smoke as Christmas gifts and, as hatchery-origin fish, they’re there to be utilized.
The hatchery is easy to find, immediately adjacent to Highway 101 at Hoodsport. Line up along the creek channel with everyone else and drift Corkies and yarn on a light lead, or float and jig, or any other standard steelhead-type gear in greens, purples and reds.
This is a great opportunity for those without boats and makes a good long-day outing.
This year, too, there was supposedly a program set up and funded to do away with the smell and distasteful piles of carcasses left over from commercial netting and egg-taking operations.
Down in south Puget Sound, the beach fishery at the mouth of Kennedy Creek also has picked up. One check last week showed 21 anglers with 16 chums on the stream, which runs into Totten Inlet some 10 or 12 miles northwest of Olympia.
The Skagit has offered good fishing recently for a mix of chums and late coho, off Gardner Bar near Burlington for beach plunkers and drifters using size 4 to 6 Spin N Glos with sand shrimp, and for boat anglers there and in the Hamilton-Lyman area using a variety of backtrolled Kwikfish, Dick Nite spoons, and Blue Fox spinners.
Bob Ferber at Holiday Sports in Burlington (360-757-4361) said the Cascade is still producing coho, some fresh, and some of large size.
Winter steelhead: Biologist Joe Hymer, with the state’s Vancouver office, said early winter steelhead, both wild and hatchery stocks, have been reported already at the Kalama Falls Hatchery on the Kalama; on the Lewis, and at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery. Additionally, more than 14,000 sea-run cutthroat have returned to the Cowlitz Trout Hatchery, which could be a record.
Traditionally, southwest Washington rivers host the state’s earliest-returning winter steelhead.
Razor clams: If marine toxin tests allow, the state has scheduled a razor clam dig Nov. 11-13 on four coastal beaches: Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis and Mocrocks. The legal tides for those days include Nov. 11, 5:33 p.m., minus 0.6 feet; Nov. 12, 6:18 p.m., minus 1.2 feet; Nov. 13, 7:04 p.m., minus 1.5 feet.
The department also has tentatively scheduled another dig on the same four beaches for evening tides on Dec. 10-12.
Final OK for an opening on the first set of tides will be posted by Nov. 9, according to Dan Ayres, the state shellfish manager. Call the regional office at 360-249-4628 and listen to the automated menu for a recorded announcement, or call the department’s toll-free shellfish hotline, 1-866-880-5431, or go to the agency’s Web site.
Walleye and more: Guide and Brewster resident Rod Hammons (509-689-2849) said walleye fishing on the central Columbia River has been pretty good recently, with dropping water temperatures on the big river. Fish have been running 3 to 7 pounds, he said, and they’re well scattered from Wells Dam to Grand Coulee Dam. Steelheading in the Columbia, on fish bound for the Methow and Okanogan rivers, has been fair, Hammons said. Steelheaders are using float/jig combos in red, black or purple, or backtrolling plugs in similar colors.
Now’s a good time for a combination trip, fishing or fishing/hunting with farm-raised pheasants, Hammons said.
Westside pheasant: And speaking of pheasant, John Garrett said the local release-site program is in full autumn swing on the Skagit and Snoqualmie wildlife areas, both of which he manages for the state. He is releasing 390 birds per week on the Skagit Wildlife Area, split equally between the “headquarters area” on Fir Island, west of Conway, and the “Smith Farm/Leque Island” area, south of the Stanwood-Camano Island road, just across the bridge from Stanwood going west. Garrett plants 75 birds at each spot on Friday nights for Saturday hunts, and on Saturday nights for Sunday hunts, along with 45 birds at each site Tuesday nights for Wednesday hunts.
The schedule includes one additional hunting day on the Snoqualmie Wildlife Area, which gets 550 birds per week, divided between the Stillwater, Cherry Valley, and Crescent Lake units in the Snoqualmie Valley. Garrett plants equal numbers of birds at each unit in the evening prior to hunts on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
The state Upland Bird Hunting Pamphlet, available at license vendors, shows the locations of all these sites.
Garrett said this schedule will be maintained through Thanksgiving weekend, and he usually saves a few additional pheasant for that final weekend hunt.
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