Sunday's King opener in MA 9-10

What's the verdict- endure the crowds at Pt. Townsend, stick closer to home near Apple Tree, or secret spot?

Secret spot...along with the rest of the people who know about it.

Joe

We'll be fishing where the fish are and not so much were they aren't. Hopefully.

Got 20 lb very fat hen at oil docs at 930 am. 115ft of braided bangin bottom with green hootchy. Lost a king earlier at picnic point.

My secret spot in the middle of the channel up by the Bank was decent. Limited by 9 but the grade of fish appear small this year based on my observations. Saltys 20lb fish is the first fish Ive heard of around 20.

Crabbing is borderline dismal, I dont think Ive ever seen so few dungeness.

We got our fish mid-day. Like SG said, the grade is pretty underwhelming. 10, 10, and 10 for us, cookie cutters. Lost another to a seal that looked to be the same size fish. We did manage a few out in the staits last week that were in the upper teens and a 20+ with a fin, so there are a few bigger ones around.

The one thing I will say is that all 3 of the fish we cut had 2-3" tiny baby herring in their bellies....

I was hoping to fish the bar with my son yesterday afternoon/evening but circumstances conspired against us. Hopefully y'all will save some for us to catch sometime this week!

Really slow at my usual spots on the west side of A-10. We got one decent high finner king and some dink coho. Lots of effort, a few nets flying for dink coho, but I personally did not see a good king taken on the morning tide. Pretty disappointing, hopes were high as there were quite a few fish around the area in early July. Heard mid-channel was pretty dead also, probably should have made the run to Possession .

my secret spot was a dry hole- no birds, no bait , no bites. Jeff Head had some rezzie coho landed but was slow too. Possession looking like a better choice this week(?).

Possession was slow due to the weak tides. We long-line released a clipped solid 20+ at the boat and let a keeper go when it ran in to the kicker. The donkey show continued as we pulled our 4 pots to find a good number of over sized crab. Too bad 99% of them were softies. I was mostly an observer on the boat...and realized I should have stayed in Craig. Our salmon are stupid, but not in the good kind of way.

Ended up with one keeper hard crab. No salmon.

Saw a lot of nursery fish caught at Possession, with a few keepers here and there for some. Spoons and plugs. I bet the bigger tides next week will push the bait back in and things will heat up.

Heard that the channel in the middle was on fire, but not as much bait as normal. I wouldn't be surprised to see those fish come on down the pipeline and fill in the normal MA 9 and 10 locations soon.

It was slow in our spot, but I was able to scratch up a SUPER fat 14 lb buck. All of the bait was super tiny 1" or less. I heard of several 20+ lb fish caught at some of the usual spots. Lots of resi ho's in the mix as well.

Three coho off the beach.
All unclipped so they are still swimming. Must have missed them at the hatchery clipping table....

Did see one nice king jump and some bait getting bullied.
Tides sucked, lots of salad and the cloud cover burned off too quickly for my liking.
More sandlance this year then I've seen in a while.
Baited up about 30 crabs off the beach on last weekends minus tide, not one legal.
SF

quota has been met.

The day started of slow but picked up right at the tide change. we hit a couple of resident coho and barely legal chinook all within a half hour of each other... we lost one large chinook at the boat and had a couple of other coho put on a nice aerial getaway display...

Good work Piper.
Your kids are getting big!
SF

West Point for 3 hours this morning. Nothing. Lots of bait and fish on the screen though.

Hey Salty - we fished by you on the opener.

Any surface bait today and if so, what was the size?

No surface bate. I cut the 20 pounder open and there were very small, skinny candlefish I believe.

Yep - teeny tiny 1" candlefish. It would be great to see some herring show up!

Good luck,

Why the sandlance hate Nick?
SF

Nick's getting Sandy?

I am sandy dammit!

It's kinda hard to match the hatch on 1" bait unless you are Paker. I prefer to give em' something big and meaty.


Edit: Nice stealth edit there Paker. Fixed!

Yeah we have that tiny stuff in my neck of the woods right now. Looks great boiling all over the surface in the morning, but no idea how to match it up. Makes a coho killer look huge.

BTW I was thinking this site was dead, and then an actual fishing report thread got going! Praise Jesus!

fb

Used to catch a lot of kings back in the day using smaller tandem hook coho flies behind a dodger.
SF

Try a dick nite about that size. Years back when I fished the salt a lot, that's how we matched the smaller baitfish. Caught some nice sized kings & silvers with those.

you guys go ahead and match the hatch... I'll catch the fish that are eating the big baitfish

we got a late start this morning but still managed to limit on resident coho and this nice King... dressed out at 19#...

Nice fish Piper - looking good. Let me know if you ever need gas money, big baits or a deck swab [cough cough].

Nice work Piper!
SF

That's a good one Piper!

Nice fish Piper!

I see that WDFW posted the catch estimate MA9 and 10 for the opening day. For MA 9 the estimate is 1,059 Chinook landed; 19% of the 5,599 quota. For MA 10 the estimate was 81 Chinook landed; nearly 4% of the 2,166 quota.

Have to wonder if the MA 9 season will make it to August 5.

Curt

I'm guessing it'll about one more week and they'll need to move 10 to two fish to make quota. If we leave fish on the table due to an artificial deadline, I'm going to be super pissed. We can't give the Mucks a reason to take more next year IMO.

Warning for those planning to use the Everett Boat Ramp:

Rooster tails of black sand from a few boat motors coming and going from boat ramp basin into channel at low slack Friday morning. Lower minus tides this Sat. and Sun. at around -3.0 feet.

I got through Wed Morning with semi-tilted motor when the tide was at -0.4, but the depth finder showed around 1’ of water in some spots--- a little more or less in others.

Fishing report, WDFW LE stopped by, when we were fishing, and said that it was pretty slow from the boats they targeted on Wednesday. No fish checkers at the ramp Wed. when we got back.

In MA 6 at the Port Angeles ramp, the checkers had seen 2 Chinook by 2 p.m. this afternoon. Pretty slow.

Cruised back from the San Juans yesterday morning after a week of Island hopping. The boats were thick from Pt Wilson to Midchannel Bank. Didn't fish but the action must have been good from the numbers of people. Even shoulder to shoulder casting from shore at Pt Wilson.

WDFW FISHING RULE CHANGE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov

July 27, 2017

Anglers can keep 2 chinook per day
in Marine Area 10 beginning July 29

Action: Increases the daily limit for hatchery chinook to two fish in Marine Area 10, excluding Sinclair Inlet and fishing piers.

Effective Date: 12:01 a.m. Saturday, July 29, through 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017.

Species affected: Chinook salmon.

Location: Marine Area 10 (Seattle/Bremerton Area).

Reason for action: Preliminary estimates indicate that anglers had caught 227 fish, or 10 percent, of the chinook quota of 2,166 fish for Marine Area 10. WDFW anticipates that sufficient quota remains to allow the fishery to run through Aug. 15 as scheduled. The changes to the chinook fishery are consistent with conservation objectives and agreed-to management plans.

Other information: The daily limit remains unchanged at a 2-salmon limit; chum, wild chinook and wild coho must still be released. The catch estimates and quotas for Marine Area 10 can be found at http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/reports_plants.html.

For specific regulations, anglers should consult the 2017-18 Washington Sport Fishing Rules pamphlet available online at http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/.

Information contact: Ryan Lothrop, (360) 902-2808, or Mark Baltzell, (306) 902-2707.

and don't forget that starting monday, its beach fishing for hatchery coho only in MA-9...

two fvcking weeks... I'm on a 5 year plan to leave this sh!tty fishing hole of a state...

Agree with Piper .... WDFW has become a laughing stock .

Starting Monday I doubt there will be any fishing for hatchery chinook in MA10 since Area 9 needs less than a 1,000 fish to reach quota.... and over 1,200 were caught Mon-Thurs this week...

Thanks for opportunity!

Ike

Retired here 20 years ago after booming construction work all my adult life with my bride from the PNW to retire to peaceful livin' and great fishing! Loved the North Sound "S" rivers with many epic days but what it is today I'm with you Piper> Time to move on!

for what its worth, coho fishing was lights out today, lots of fun on light tackle... and 90% hatchery

Seasons were announced months ago.
Moving because the fishing is too good is interesting.

What a great last day of "boat" fishing in area 9... we didn't target Kings but managed a small blackmouth anyway - then filled the limit with hatchery coho. All in all we had 18 fish on, landed 10, released 4, and all by 8 am. The best day of coho fishing we've had in area 9 this season...

Only 350 days till we can do it again... maybe...

Well done! You guys are dialed in.

Nice job Piper.
There definately are a lot of coho around.

I don't own a boat, but I feel for you.
The no fishing from a boat ban is ridiculous. If they are worried about Chinook encounters, how about something like a 3 or 4 oz weight restriction rather then just closing things to all boat angling (including kayaks).

Sure some kings would be encountered, but for the most part that would keep folks up in the water column were the coho tend to hang out.
I think most folks would rather have restrictive fishing regulations over closed fishing.
SF

or just close it to chinook like they have in the past, but keep it open to coho.

As we both know the last two seasons were set by WDFW "scientists" that do not fish Puget sound and only read reports on ocean conditions...

Closing puget sound in August for ocean coho is so fucving stupid, the only ocean coho in puget sound are net pen and early returning hatchery fish (Quil/Skok). The closures the last few years are nothing more than a fish grab by the tribes. I doubt, and I hope I'm wrong, we will ever see a full coho season in puget sound again... they know that they can give us a two day season and we will still buy a license to take advantage of the "opportunity"... just like the 4 days of shrimping and the 44 days of crabbing a year that we now have to pay extra for...

Get ready for some bad news out of A-10.

Total catch as of August 10, 2017: 1,030

Based on this, seems it will stay open for Chinook till the 15th.

More details on the bad news .....don't leave us hanging.

News is we are only at 48% of Quota, and there is only 5 days left in the season, without the possibility of extension.

I and a couple others argued that it should have opened with two fish based on last years catch rate & creel numbers, against a larger quota this year. Those voices in the charter industry wanted it left at 1 fish to ensure the seasons would go to the 15th so they could continue to book trips. I get it and support longer seasons, but MA 10 typically turns on later than North MA9, (it really got good in the last week) and now we will probably leave a lot of fish on the table. Elliot Bay fish do NOT count against MA10 Quota, and we will have a lot of anglers participating there over the weekend, so those fish will lessen impact on the quota.

I hate leaving a lot of fish and opportunity on the table when we have a short season and zero flexibility in the LOAF to adjust beyond 2 fish or extend the seasons.

The bad news is that we are going to leave a LOT of A-10 fish on the table. Fish that we may not get back next year because politics. All because of an artificial and arbitrary 8.15 closing date. When the tribes don't hit their numbers, they get added dates. When we don't hit our numbers, we get closed on and any remaining fish get soaked up by the tribes. It's BS.

So many hatch and ESA Duwa Kings are going to get killed by nets. Sad.

we absolutely killed the salmon in area 10 this weekend, literally... fished area 10 and managed to hook a few dozens shakers... we moved 3 times and couldn't get out of them...

In comparison, if area 9 were open to boats, I would've killed 4 adult hatchery coho, released 1 native coho and a shaker... fewer fish killed and more hatchery fish removed from the gene pool...

makes you wonder if anyone in the WDFW actually fishes... on the bright side, I think I have the new state record for Saltwater kokanee...

Last afternoon of king fishing for me yesterday. Fished in the usual spots with the crowds, pretty slow. Heading home, spotted some birds working a spot I rarely fish, pulled in and experienced perhaps the hottest king bite I've ever seen short of the WCVI area. Could not keep the gear in the water. Some really nice high finners, and one last hatch for the freezer.

Definitely gonna be some good A-10 king fishing in the next couple of weeks we will not experience .

Heard final number was over 2,300 for A10. Well over quota.

they need to shut it down earlier next year... or just not open it at all since we are so far over quota this year

"Over quota" is a misnomer this season. I think we are sitting on one of the best hatchery Chinook escapements to Puget Sound that we have seen in quite some years. We have no mechanism for in-season adjustments because we just "agree" to whatever magic number they come up with before we have seen any fish....

Some of the tribes are seeing their "best years on record" and all they have to do to keep fishing is submit an in-season updated model, and adjust their "quota" up up and up.

Pretty sad state of affairs. The sound is silly with Kings right now and we're all twiddling our thumbs.

Can't even fish pinks and silvers North of Edmonds....

Sad.

" think we are sitting on one of the best hatchery Chinook escapements to Puget Sound that we have seen in quite some years."

I have to agree with Ugly on this one. Some of the best summer Chinook fishing I've ever seen in A-10 this year. Been running shallow for coho since the closure and still can't avoid em. Would be nice to see a methodology to have an updated model like the tribes have. Need the same approach for crab, poorest year I've seen in over 20...rec crab should be closed in A-10.

So glad to be playing catch and release with nice hatchery kings. It just warms my heart to know that I'm doing all I can to help support our local casino buffets. I'm sure Tina and her old college friends will be SUPER appreciative of their tasty cedar planked King and white wine spritzers. C'mon triple cherries! Momma needs a new Coach handbag!