A few shots from our trip out to Neah Bay...
With camping at the Cape being first come, first served, I ran out early on Friday morning by myself to get camp set up, and my buddy and the boat showed up in the evening. After a quick stop at Swain's and a cruise out to Neah Bay we managed one of the last few spots, and it was the same spot we get every time...so that was nice.
Moorage had been sold out for quite a while, but they were expecting some cancellations and some folks leaving early...and that, too, became first come, first served.
A short walk down to Big Salmon to check on moorage status every hour finally got us a spot...which besides being easier to deal with, kept us from having to get up at 2am to get in the launch line to get the boat in the water at a reasonable time on a halibut day!
With camping and moorage secured, I just chilled around camp waiting for Sean and his girlfriend Trina to roll into town...which they did around 7pm. We went straight to the launch, dumped the boat, and ran right out and got ourselves a quick limit of black rockfish
Since it was getting on towards dark by the time we got back to the marina there was no fish cleaning service
...so while Sean and Trina got their stuff settled in at camp I did a quick fillet job on our limits and rolled back to camp. By the time the fish were stowed and dinner was eaten it was midnight, and with a 4am wakeup coming we all hit the rack.
We rolled out of the marina at 4:45 the next morning, rounded Cape Flattery, and headed for parts south to see about getting some halibut.
The spots we knew about had been putting out a lot of fish over the past few weeks...but most if not all were in the 20 to 25 pound range. We had this great idea that we would just CnR until we found a few bigger ones, and then head in to get our lings and rockfish.
As Mike Tyson once said...everyone has a great game plan until they get hit in the mouth, and with no electric reels on board and reeling up halibut from 500 feet deep the "let's just wait for bigger ones" went right out the door!
I dropped my 2 pound pipe jig to the bottom 8 times, hooked up 6 times, reeled up four, handed off two, and reeled up twice without a fish on the other end.
After reeling and releasing a few 20-25s up I knew that waiting for a bigger one was not in the cards!
We ended up hooking nine halibut in about an hour, and bonked three, and got the hell out of there.
We headed back to the inside and found ourselves pretty quickly sitting on top of a big school of black rockfish...and it didn't take long to box up 30 sets of fish and chips with tails
Added bonus was that we found our lings in and amongst the rockies and got all but one of them while we were doing, and a quick stop at a "ling spot" put another one in the box...and we were done for the day.
Me and Sean with a few of the groceries:
And Sean and Trina...
Saturday's haul!
Long lines at the fish cleaning tables on Saturday afternoon, and I happily forked over $40 plus a $10 tip to get all that mess turned into bags of meat
A nice dinner, and a visit with Achewter and his buds at their camp, and it was bedtime again.
Slept in until 7am, ran right outside the marina, and got another quick limit of fish and chips...
Done too early to pay someone to clean our fish for us, so while Sean got the boat cleaned up I ripped out our last limits of fish, hauled them back to camp and vacuum sealed them up.
We packed up camp, and hit the road...back home on Sunday just in time for dinner
Fishing, scenery, camping...it's all so good at Neah Bay that I can't wait to get back out...there were a few salmon every day at the cleaning table already, too, so we'll be back out for that as soon as we are able!
Fish on...
Todd
