A buddy and I were there Sat/Sun too, and did well. Got a 14# buck on Sat that just missed the derby cut. Two others at 10+, and a small one we kept for our limit to get back in time for the derby deadline. We also released a nate buck that was well over 20#. Sunday was slower, but we hit a lot of large nates. Finished our limit Sun at 1:15 with 2 over 10# again.

In a day and a half, two of us kept 8 fish and released 60 of which 50-55 were nates, many over 15# and one of our doubles featured two nates in the upper teens that hit both rods simultaneously.

I think we were into bigger fish on average than a lot of folks we talked to. We also were trolling faster than most and away from the crowds. And, we hit fish on a lot of different gear, from bait to flies to hardware, mostly shallower than 45 ft, but sometimes down as far as 75.

The weather and water were perfect, unless you don't like the fog. Heading back out again Thur-Sat and it's looking like similar conditions.

One thing I was very disappointed to see was how many people were netting every fish they hooked, then dumping them on the floor of their boat only to "throw" them back overboard. Between our release stick and a set of pliers, we only brought 1 fish in the boat that we intended to release, and that was only because this big buck had wired it's mouth shut with the leader and the hooks were inside. Even then, we lifted the fish in the boat with two hands so as to do it less harm, then cut away the leader. Took a few minutes of cold hands and CPR after that, but he swam away strong and it was worth the extra effort.

Of note, a friend of mine in another boat got a $75 ticket at Sekiu Sat for not recording a fish on his punchcard IMMEDIATELY. They'd just landed it and were reorganizing things (important when there are rods and hooks laying around with kids in the boat). They hadn't put their rods back in the water yet nor had they done anything which would suggest they were starting to fish again. And, they passed every other inspection (licenses, barbless, safety and floatation on kids, etc) and had recorded the other three fish in their box. Given the perfect marks everywhere else and the fact that they hadn't yet returned to fishing, I think the gamies should have given him a warning instead. After hearing this Sat evening, we made sure we marked our cards Sunday before our keepers were even out of the net...