Find a shelf and/or steep slope (or D3 or Neal..or Gilly) and fish in the 30-50' depth range. Be there at first light or very late sundown. Put that cut-plug near the bottom and hold on.

Your window of opportunity might be smaller, but it still can be productive.

Just gotta find where the fish come up to feed in the very early am and late evenings.

DR's just give the bigger boats a chance at some fish....no matter what depth, conditions, time, etc. IE, more flexibility.

PS. I was gonna say "Ask D3", but he beat me too it!

PPS. If Shilshole ever opens back up again for kingers, it's a trolling show. First light out in front of the bluff near the set of cans - and hold on.

PPS. Point Williams - Just north of the ferry dock at West Seattle. We used to drag a boat from the beach there at the ferry dock, motor on out to about 30' of water where the slope starts and troll herring. I think that's MA 10. Used to kill the fish there trolling and/or motor mooching. Whatever it's called. Stopped doing it when the old man couldn't help me launch our 12' Livingston. We were basically popping a fish or two a morning. What Ryley just described.

You can do really well out there motor mooching right alongside the downrigger guys. Use a 6-8 oz bannana weight with 75 pulls and let your bait sink and rise using the motor going in and out of gear.. Before I started using downriggers this is how we put fish in the boat all the time.

or u can do real mooching and periodically hit bottom and come up 15 cranks

What is "real mooching"?

I always did the "motor mooching" as what Sky-Guy mentioned. Sometimes near the bottom, sometimes not. Most of the times, it was hit the bottom and come up about 3' or so.

What I always considered the "real mooching" where those guys that were using the 1-2 ounces (sliding) and would cast out the herring, work the bait down to the bottom, reel and work the bait back up, etc.

Not being racist here, but just an observation - at least when I've noticed it before, more often than not, folks of asian descent would be doing this - and they were damn good at it. Never saw any one else ever fish this way. The rest of us were just lazy I guess and trolled around in search of fish.

They would position themselves in the boat to work with the current and would just drift along and work their bait.

Some of the "regulars" would just put a hurt to the fish. We were too, so we never changed our ways.

Is that "real mooching"? Just asking.

I may run up there for a day or two.

Mooching was first documented in Elliot Bay. From what I have heard the Norwegian Herring fisherman were looking for another market for their catch. They made the herring available to fisherman, who primarily used wooden J plugs. The Japanese fisherman flocked to the live bait, and fished it with great results. The term Mooching was coined when all the fishless anglers would "mooch" the bait from the happy, fish heavy anglers.

That said, if you fish with herring and it is not on a downrigger, you are a moocher and you are mooching.

Motor mooching, drift mooching, we used to do it all before downriggers.

That said, I like to troll with my downriggers now. I cover alot more water and put my lures in front of a lot more fish.

Matt

Sg -
One can catch those kings with standard mooching gear (drifting or motor mooching) in a number of spots out of Seattle. Give me a shout if you decide to head up this way and I can provide directions to a spot or two

I love to fish 1 1/2 to 3 ounces of lead and a fresh cut plug., light lines and leaders and direct drive reels. While catch rates are not on parr with the best of the wire boys they are more than adequate for a fish or two for the table most days.

Parker -
Many of those sub 10# fish I saw last year in folk's fish boxes were in fact mature Chinook rather than blackmouth. WDFW folks tell me that there were lots of 3 year old Chinook spawning last year which hopefully will men good numbers of those larger 4 year olds.

Tell me what will happen to future runs if we select for the largest fish and leave the small fish for the hatchery where they will disproportionately contribute to the brood stock? Seems to me that using such size criteria is even more size selective than the hated gill nets.

Tight lines
Curt

There were a ton of what i would call jack chinook last year. we were catching bronze 24-26 inch fish late into the summer.
Neal and I got 6 the other day and would barely break the 10-12# mark on those fish. I'm all for not keeping the 22 inch blackmouth but if i catch a mature fish, I'm whacking it. hell, my fish never get counted anyways

Smalma, Why not cull the dinks out at the Hatchery? Since June 1 of this season nearly 95% of all kings landed in area 10 in my charter boat have been hatchery fin clipped fish, with a good number being 4yr 15-18lb fish. I would not say that the fishing has been stellar, very little bait. But the average fish seems to be pretty good.


HOld on tight if you are fishing out in the north end of area 10. One of the charter boats in our fleet caught and released a 42" Halibut today trolling at 60' in 80' of water on a hootchie and dodger.

Matt

Drift mooching or motor mooching... It just depends on the situation. I'm a diehard moocher so I'll be out there working bait all the time. Just a preference I guess. Some areas though I admit seem to favor riggers but you can always put fish in the boat the old fashioned way.

Following up on Parker's observation... my grandfather's best friend is magic on the water with a mooching setup. I've never seen anyone, not even with modern setups put more fish in the boat in ebay than him. He went in when most went out. Of course he is my idol...(sorry for the long message)

Uncounted fish don't count against the quota, so whack 'em and stack 'em if no one will be counting them! Hell, screw the limits at that point - as they are JUST hatchery fish.

If the fish managers don't want anglers to select for larger, higher quality fish, don't do a quota fishery. Open it up for X days and either allow a 1 or 2 fish limit on hatchery fish.

I'll stop selecting for the fish I whack in MA10 when the quotas stop. I'd rather fish longer in to the season than put a couple of doink nooks in the box.

I wonder how much money is dumped in to the local economy per day the MA 10 season is open?

Oh, and the quota is tiny, relatively speaking. Don't think anyone is worried as to what size/age brooders will make it back to the hatcheries. As good as we are, we can't catch them all - and it doesn't take very many fish for the hatchery to get their fill of eggs and males.

I also did a little exploring this last weekend after wacking a decent EB fish on friday and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of bait we found almost to much and a few kings . The area 9/10 fishery should be fun again this year from the early show of mature fish that we saw!!!PEACE

I hate quotas, but that being said I will be out there waging war against all hatchery fish! can't friggin wait. out of all the fish I've landed and seen landed, I bet 90 plus percent have been clippped.
Halibut in area 10 eh bro? suspended even. that's sweet.

Gilly -
I don't disagree that the hatcheries could select the fish they use as brood stock. However current spawning protocols do not allow such selection of brood stock. While you and I would likely agree on the benefits of some selection for larger brood fish the genetic police do not and currently they have the last word.

If this year fishery develops like last year and we burn through the quota as in only a couple of weeks it clearly is time to think about ways to extend the fishery or redistribute the catches. Hopefully if those discussion happen folks will become more involved than in the past. As I mentioned earlier with allowable impacts on the weakest stocks limiting our fisheries significantly larger summer quotas in mixed stock areas will be at the expense of some other fishery.

Parker -
You obviously do not get it at all. Our fishing today is not about how many hatchery fish we kill but rather how many wild ESA listed Chinook we encounter and in that process kill. Our fisheries and to some extent our future fishing depends on limiting our impacts on those listed fish. It is attitudes (screw limits) such as that you expressed above that allows other resource users to place the majority of the conservation burden on the fishing community.

When we anglers sort for better fish we will in that process encounter more of the listed wild fish meaning that for the same wild fish impacts there will be few fish to harvest. Of course we could all lie about those encounters. Howver in that case I believe that those that do so forfeit their right to take the managers to task for mis-management.

Tight lines
Curt

I have a funny feeling that the big push of Chinook are going to be arriving later this year. While the quota may be reached with the smaller Chinook in a matter of 2-3 weeks I don't think it will be like last year when most of the action was early. Just a hunch since all the other runs this year seem to be late and the fruit in my orchard are ripening later. What do I know I still only catch dogfish when I try to mooch.

1 for 1 this evening. Nice wild fish around 12 pounds. beautiful night to be out.

I'll be out there most every day it's open which I think will only be about one week since preasure will be way up after last years reports!

The #1 thing I love about this fishery is that they are still feeding hard which, of course, for me means moochie moochie! I'm hoping to get my downriggers mounted this weekend but even then 90% of my time will be spent mooching. The downriggers are mainly there so I have something to hold on to while peeing.

What VHF channel you all monitor????

Thanks for the hints. As a mostly fly fisherman, the whole concept of trolling is usually boring to me, although watching the depth-finder is a nice distraction. I like to be busy when I'm fishing, so working my gear by mooching or motor-mooching a herring seems more attractive.

Since the hatchery chinook are heading to all parts of Puget Sound, does the bite turn on first in Area 9 in north sound and then progressively get better into Area 10? Since almost all the chinook have to pass a northern point, does a "head 'em off at the pass" strategy of fishing somewhere like Point-No-Point effectively give an angler opportunity at more fish during the limited season available?

Sg

Trolling is only boring if you arent catching fish.
Heading 'em off is a good bet but realize that there are fish spread throughout the sound right now. Find the bait and fish it. I do love mooching at PnP when there is a ton of bait in July.
There are also reasonable bets to get a king off the beach. If you target them and fish hard you might be able to get a couple. There have been Kings at PnP the last few years busting bait within casting distance. Shooting heads and the proper fly will put you in the game. Nothing quite like hooking a big king from the beach

I hook quite a few nice kings during my beach fishing excursions and on the days when I can not ho a seat on friends boats, that is right where I will be. Fishing the beach aint neccesarily a bad thing. As far as mooching goes I got tired of feeding the dogfish expensive hooks and became a trolling advocate here in puget sound. My motto used to be "Death Before Downriggers." A little something a certain magazine writer used to have plastered on the back of his car. I gotta thank Gilly for giving me a crash course in trolling 101 last summer. His knowledge helped put a lot more fish in the boats of everyone I fished with last summer. All that being said Good luck everyone! -TBJ