After having the precious fews times that I have been out last month and this month resulted in nothing but shakers, I finally got a legit fish on yesterday. I launched at Shilshole, saw a nice bait ball right past the jetty, so instead of running over to Pt Monroe, I just started fishing. Got a few shakers and started heading around the corner at Medow Pt and was getting ready to move, pulled my line off the downrigger and a nice backmouth took my spoon, the reel was racing....and I could really feal the fish, but he came off. Boy was I disappointed.....

I happened to notice the seal just following the boat and didn't think anything of it. Well, got another fish on, and again the real was singing and this time it didn't stop. I thought I had the monster blackmouth of all time, had the boat in reverse, but when I looked up and saw way behind the boat there was a seal with my fish in his mouth!!! Needless to say, I was furious. I need to figure out how to scare those worthless creatures. After that incident I was blasting my airhorn at them, and that seemed to help drive them away. They seem to be getting smarter all the time and training the young ones as a saw a pup trying the same thing.

I do have to say it was an exciting trip and was glad to get into some decent fish finally, but hate to come home empty handed only to feed my fish to those overbread, salmon steal'n seals.

Darn those seals!

I went out of Shilshole Saturday morning and turned south to get out of the rough water. Fished around West Point and Duwamish Head. We caught fish all day long, but none bigger than 20 inches.

We didn't see a lot of bait, but when we got our gear on the bottom, the fish hit it.

The best catch was a crab pot - bouy and all. It had about 50 feet of rope, but was dropped in 100+ feet of water. It got tangled up on a downrigger. Unfortunately for it's owner, the name/address is illegible. Merry Christmas to me!

Darn those seals!

I went out of Shilshole Saturday morning and turned south to get out of the rough water. Fished around West Point and Duwamish Head. We caught fish all day long, but none bigger than 20 inches.

We didn't see a lot of bait, but when we got our gear on the bottom, the fish hit it.

The best catch was a crab pot - bouy and all. It had about 50 feet of rope, but was dropped in 100+ feet of water. It got tangled up on a downrigger. Unfortunately for it's owner, the name/address is illegible. Merry Christmas to me!

Wait until you tangle with a big bull sealion that goes over 1000lbs One heck of an epic battle.

There has been some effort made to get a change in the Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow boaters to use anti-seal noise making devices. To use one would currently be considered harassment under the law. It would seem like a logical step to attempt to discourage learned behavior like fish snatching and, in a few cases, jumping onto boats.

If you had a wrist rocket on board and a bag of marbles you could scare one away that way. When a marble hits the water hard right next to one of their heads (you'll never be able to actually hit one) they go away. You need to do it before they get one of your fish though. And don't get caught doing it!!

Ah, the seal

I have lost more than my share of fish to the seal, but twice I actually hooked a seal on herring, and once even played one out to the point that I could have netted it no problem - all I did was grab my lead and bust him off, though. This was back when I used to mooch out of a rowboat. Hooked this bugger at 0 dark 30, and at first thought I had a mondo king, then thought the seal had my king when he finally came up 100 yards away, and when it finally got light enough to see, I could tell he had my leader down his gullet with no king in sight. With the combination of the light boat I was in and the relatively slow accelleration curve of the seal compared to a salmon, I was able to tighten my drag down all the way and let him tow me around against the spring of the rod. In about 20 minutes I had him gasping on the surface. If I wouldn't have been right out in front of about 500 houses I might have been tempted to get out the club, but lactic acid buildup and a couple mooching hooks was all the pain I dared administer to him. Oh darn, did I just admit to harrassing a seal

Was fishing for springers in a hogline,down by Rainier last year.Saw about 5 fish taken from the boaters.
One guy pulls out a pistol and pops off a couple shots in the water.(not at the sealion)loses his fish anyway.Got lots of chears ans clapping though.
Another boat was about to net a fish and a sealion rams his boat trying to get his fish,actually he got it.Luckily noone went overboard.
It was definitely a learned behavior,they would sit back about 30=40 yards and wait for somebody to hookup.then the race was on to see if the fish got landed or stolen.It got stolen more often than not.
Something needs to be done.

I couple of those Columbia Sealions floated up on beaches with more holes in their body than they were borne with. Can't say that I'm too upset about it - they seem to be healthy as a population.

On one of our trips down there, as we were running back to the dock, we saw this great big commotion in the middle of the river. Two seals were rolling around each other and frothing on the top. We first thought they were fighting over a fish, but no fish was to be seen. After a bit, it appeared that they were busily trying to make little seals. That was a sight!

We were nearly rammed by a sea lion (not a little harbor seal) headed downstream in a riffle above Cottonwood on the Hoh just before the end of salmon season. They were sighted as far up as Oxbow the day before.

I don't think this is part of their natural distribution pattern!

Incredibly high numbers of steelhead so far this year are carrying fresh seal marks ... I'd venture a guess of approximately 3/4 of them.

Time to pare their numbers some??

I've never seen much factual data, but everything I hear is they are at historical highs in population??

You can try to manage all other populations when a top-level predator is left unchecked!