TThe second half of the winter blackmouth season opens Tuesday in Marine Area 8-1, and there should be fat feeder chinook waiting to hammer a properly presented bait or lure.
Area 8-1 runs from Deception Pass southward, inside Whidbey Island, to a line between East Point (Fox’s Spit) and Camano Island State Park.
Area 8-2, which runs south of area 8-1 to the Mukilteo area, is closed until Feb. 16. (An error in an earlier online version of the article and the print edition of Thursday’s Herald gave the wrong designation for the area that was open, but the description was correct.)
“That area can offer decent fishing this time of year,” said All Star Charters owner/skipper Gary Krein in Everett (425-252-4188). “I like the stretch from the tip of East Point, northward to Baby Island. I work that fairly hard and, if there isn’t much doing, might elect to go on across the mouth of Holmes Harbor to Greenbank.”
Krein said the East Point-Baby Island trolling slot is pretty much a straight line, except for the abrupt hook at the point proper. He said it fishes best at the first tide change of the day, and for an hour or so either side. On Tuesday, that change falls about 9 a.m., so the first two or three days could be good.
The area also fishes a little shallow, Krein noted. He likes to be on the bottom in 70 to 90 feet of water, pulling a green flasher/green squid combo, or a flasher/Coyote spoon in a red racer pattern.
A bonus, he said, is that the trolling slot there offers a protected fishery when a south or southwest wind blows. It’s also close to the Camano Island Park ramp in case the weather really kicks up.
Outdoor show: The Washington Sportsmen’s Show opened Wednesday at the Western Washington Fairgrounds in Puyallup and if you can’t wait for the closer-to-home version (the show moves pretty much lock, stock and barrel to Monroe on Feb. 23-27), here are the hours: today and Friday, noon to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Tickets are $9 for adults and $5 for kids ages 6 to 16. Children under 6 are free. Discounts of $2 per ticket are available at most AM/PM stores, Les Schwab stores, or on the Web. For discount coupons, plus a full seminar schedule and other information, go to www.sportshow.net/puyallup.
More on the Monroe show later.
Steelhead: A few of the shorter-run rivers had dropped back into at least marginal fishing shape by midweek, but reports were sketchy. Bob Gooding at Olympic Sporting Goods in Forks (360-374-6330) said anglers weren’t out in force yet on the Quillayute system or the Hoh, although visibility was increasing enough to suggest this weekend could be productive. Plunkers have been doing well on most rivers there for a couple of days, he said.
“This week could be the last hurrah for the winter-hatchery run,” he said. “No one knows yet how the wild component will stack up this year, but numbers so far have looked reasonably solid.”
The Cowlitz was running 9,700 cubic feet per second at Mayfield Dam on Monday, with visibility less than three feet, but a few fish were taken in the Blue Creek area.
The Kalama, as of Tuesday, was in good drift-boat condition, high but with good color, and few people were on the river. Good numbers of fish continue to be trapped at the Kalama Hatchery, and recycled to the lower river.
The west Whidbey beaches continue to kick out a few steelhead to “surf” casters, in what has turned into a pretty fair, albeit late, season on the saltwater.
Smelt: Water temperatures in the Cowlitz have warmed up to the 45-47 degree range, which is considered optimal for eulachon spawning activity, and even the mainstem Columbia warmed a little over the past couple of weeks. All this is considered positive for the smelt run, and indications are that there are fish in the area. State Fish and Wildlife biologist Joe Hymer in the Vancouver office said commercial smelters hit a few fish on trial trips below Longview early this week, and that bird activity had been noted below the Astoria bridge.
Locally, flooded rivers and the resulting freshwater overload in Puget Sound apparently didn’t kill what was developing into a pretty good smelt jigging season in certain spots. State creel checks at Cornet Bay last weekend, for instance, showed nine jiggers on the state park docks with 24 smelt and 14 herring. Not great, but not a wipeout, either.
Waterfowl: Bob Ferber at Holiday Market Sports in Burlington said the good duck shooting on the Skagit Delta because of frozen ponds and cold weather was replaced with good duck shooting on flooded fields and (during the windy periods) on public access dikes.
Turn those hunting reports in, or …: State wildlife managers say they really don’t want to toss hunters in the slammer for not complying with the mandatory postseason hunting report program, but they seriously need the information and maybe if they add $50 to the cost of next year’s license for noncompliance, that might jog some memories and also be a lot more enforceable. Participation in the program has declined in each year of its existence, and as of mid-January this year, just 31 percent of hunters who bought a 2004 deer, elk, black bear or turkey tag had submitted hunting information. The reports are due by Jan. 31.
The current misdemeanor penalty for noncompliance is a fine of up to $1,000 and a year in jail. Obviously, that seems like overkill to everyone concerned. But biologists say hunter reports are crucial to effective game management and declining cooperation has the potential to seriously compromise that management.
The proposal for an “administrative fee” still needs approval by the Legislature. Funds generated would, according to the state, be used to expand outreach efforts that encourage and assist hunters in reporting, to improve the reporting system, and to improve the accuracy of harvest information.
Columbia River feud: It seems incredible that, after millions of dollars and years of effort by a dozen different agencies to increase the number of endangered Columbia and Snake River wild stock steelhead, our own state Department of Fish and Wildlife would be diligently looking for ways – and the spin to sell them – to increase the number of Columbia River salmon available to non-tribal commercial netters, almost certainly at the expense of higher “incidental” kill rates on wild steelhead.
Two public meetings were held recently, along with a public workshop involving the state Fish and Wildlife Commission and a public meeting two weeks ago of the state fishing advisory group, all in an apparent effort to sell, in the words of state spokesman Guy Norman, a “sustainable salmon fishing opportunity (for non-tribal commercials) while upholding recovery goals for wild winter steelhead.”
Sport-fishing groups are upset with the idea, saying they haven’t suffered curtailed fishing opportunity, seasons and limits for years simply to turn over all the gains to industrial salmon fishermen.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
