1. Sekiu report 2. Boat launch question.

Hey Rich G,

Sorry you couldn't make it. I left the dock at 6:15am because of the minus tide. I didn't want to get stuck in the boat basin, so I left a few minutes early.

#1. 86 fish to the boat. 18 small kings, 5-10 lbs. 6 humpies, biggest was 8.2lbs cleaned.
62 silvers from 2lbs to 13lbs and there were a lot of those hook nose fish showing up.
The average fish was running much larger than three weeks ago! All fish were caught on brined plug cut herring.

I tried to fish both an apex plug and a coyote spoon, but had no fish after 30 minutes with each, while the plug cut herring rod had at least 10 fish each for the same time period. I like the idea of not messing with the bait and getting your line back into the water quickly, but I would have rather had two rods with fish on, instead of one. Any suggestions?

My son and I finished at 8:15am yesterday and were able to make it into the end of the boat basin at the Coho resort, but no further as there was a minus 1.9 tide. It is kind of hard to pull out your boat when there is 80 yards of mud between you and the ramp. This put a crimp in our plans, as we had wanted to get on the road and get home early. We ended up pulling out at 10:30am and we were only the second boat to be able to retrieve. My fault for not knowing just how low the tide was going to be.

#2. How were the boat ramps at Olson's or Van Ripers? Were folks able to retrieve their boats at low tide, or were they out of luck as well?

Thanks for your reports as well.

4salt (Mark), It was nice to meet you. See you up there again some time. Andy

Hey Andy, are you heading up there after Labor Day?

If you need someone to fill a spot on your boat, let me know.

How is the jon boat working for you?

Hi Pat,

I will be headed up there at least three more times this year. I may do a 4 day trip during Labor Day weekend, but it may be a two or three day trip. After that, I will head up there maybe the next two weekends and call it quits for Sekiu for the year.

I can always take someone out on the boat as long as there is daylight. We even thought of running shifts, as the bite goes on all day, but morning is definitely the best.

I will post the next time I'm headed up there on the board, so let me know if you are interested.

You would not recognize the jon boat if you saw it now. It now sports a nice "hunter green" coat of paint, a new transom and kicker plate, new 1/2" floorboards with black non-slip rubberized coating and grip strips, two Fish-on rod holders, an anchor cleat mounted on the bow, and a new set of 6.5' oars that are rubber coated. I even took off the "starcraft" logos and painted them flat black. So I have spent more on it than I paid for it. I got it up to 22 mph with my little 6hp kicker, but it was a little squirley. Next step is a pvc frame for camo netting for duck hunting, and a swim step for the dog.

Thanks again for the boat. You and your family took pretty good care of it. Andy

Andy,

I believe that the Olson's ramp was useable at the minus tide. We ended up staying another day. During the thick fog in the morning, we stayed close to shore around the point and the caves. There were ALOT of blackmouth, and decent sized kings there in about 50ft. of water. Sorry you didn't get the Coyote spoons dialed in. We ran out of herring the second day, so that's all we had for day 3. 3oz. mooching sinker, 6ft. leader, and the spoon. Those things outfished the herring I swear! Troll fast out in the rips with about 30 feet of line out, silver city! 40 to 50 ft. and a little slower, non-stop pinks. Close to shore, 60 ft. out, slow troll, kings and blackmouth. I am definitely sold on their effectiveness.

We are going to try and be back for Labor day weekend, but it's still up in the air. It was nice meeting you and your son, and good luck on your future trips.

Mark

Hi Mark,

The small kings were certainly out there Sunday morning as the first 10 fish we caught were small kings in the 5-10lb range. I never had to wait more than about 20 seconds, seriously, for a bite or bump on herring. I also caught about 10 of those little hatchery coho brats about 12 inches long on Sunday, but I didn't count those in my tally.

I'll be up there on the "workin' man's holiday" weekend as well.

Andy

Hey Dogfish,

I've got a couple of suggestions:

If you want to try to use spoons or plugs, I think it's really important to still use scent. I think the best is Smelly Jelly, either the blue (herring) or the yellowish-white (anchovie), and get the actual jelly ones, with the consistency of Vaseline, not the oil ones in a bottle, which are also made by "Smelly Jelly" brand. You need to mask your human scent on the gear, especially if you smoke or touch yourself a lot :-) You can also spray your gear with WD40, that _never_ hurts.
I think it's also important to try to roughly "match the hatch", in other words, use spoons that are about the same size as the naturally-occuring bait you're finding out there.

I'm not sure what the problem was with your setup, but we've done really well on my boat using no bait at all this year, sounds like pretty much the same as you, 70 fish to the boat in one night and one morning's fishing. So I've got a couple of question: how fast were you trolling? Exactly what spoons & plugs were you using, and what colors? Rigged what way? What size was the bait in the area? Were you getting hits on them but no fish on, or just no hits at all?

If you want to use bait but still want to get your gear back in the water quickly, I also have a suggestion. First off, rig all your herring leaders with a little barrel swivel on the end that attaches to your main line. Then get a dowel or broken fishing rod, or something similar, and put a snap swivel on the end of it.
While you've got two rods in the water fishing, take the next leader you're going to use, and rig a herring on it, then clip it to the end of your dowel and stick it in the water by the side of the boat to see its action, and adjust it to get proper action. Once it's tuned, just leave it sitting back in your bait cooler. When one of your baits gets ruined, just unclip the leader on that line and clip your pre-tuned herring on there, and you're ready to go pretty quickly, then just repeat. If the action is fast & furious, you might need to pre-tune a few at a time. You can cut some small pieces of drinking straws (3" long?) and coil your leaders, then pinch the line and stuff it into the straw, (so in the end it looks like a little bowtie) this keeps them from all getting tangled while they're in your cooler.

Hope this helps.

-N.

Hey Norman,

Thanks for the idea of scent. Nobody had mentioned that to me before, but it makes perfect scents. ( ) I don't smoke, and I was way too busy Sunday morning just trying to master keeping one rod baited at all times to touch myself, but I'll remember that one, too.

I was fishing a 3.5" coyote spoon, and an Apex plug that was about 4". My herring was right in that range as well.
All of the fish we clean the two prior days had a few 3-4 inch herring, a few candlefish to 5", and LOTS of Krill. I haven't seen a plug that small.

As to the subject of getting a line in the water after a fish, or losing the bait to a strike, I can turn around a bait in about 3 seconds once I get my hands on the hooks. I think your suggestions for that are great for folks who can't get it right right away, but I have mastered that part.

I was actually thinking more about the advantages of being able to reel the lure within sight of the boat to check for weeds without having to take it all the way in, or not having to check the bait after a short strike or tap. I also STINK of fish after dipping my hand in herring brine 60 times a day for two or three days, so much so that I wouldn't even think of touching anyone, let alone myself.

Thanks for the tips. Next time I will head out with some smelly jelly and try the comparison again.Andy