Blasted off into 8.2 with my friend John. Given the wind forecast and recent reports from Possession, we elected to start at Columbia Beach rather than running outside... good choice! I put a large hot spot and a 4 inch yellowtail coyote on one side and a mini hot spot and a splatterback kingfisher #3 on the other side. Tried to keep them right on the bottom. On the first pass we didn't see many fish or much bait on the screen, but a boat we passed said they had just gotten a 12-15 pounder, so we stayed. There was a lot of logs and debris in the water, so we played slalom and bumper boats as we trolled. On the next pass, we got a hit and John brought a fish to the boat that barely cleared 22 inches, so in the ice it went! Right next to us a boat got a 10 or 12 pounder in the boat. We could actually hear his drag sing from our boat. Fun to watch! Quickly after that we got another hit, and I had the fish on all the way until the flasher came up, then the fish jumped and splashed around for a second, then was gone. Probably about the same as John's fish.

Right around the tide change, we trolled up past the ferry terminal and were trolling back south. We figured we would just miss the incoming ferry. He blasted his horn at us, and we turned to make space. right then, we got a good hit. I grabbed the pole, and the fish basically went under the ferry, taking a good long run. It stayed there for a bit before letting us bring it in. Much to our dismay, it had an extra fin, so after measuring it on the gunwhale at 28 inches, we let it go... bummer!

Tried Sandy Point up to Langley, but didn't see much or have any action there.

Later we ran up to East Point, and I finally got a 23 incher into the boat right before we had to go for the day. All four hits came on the yellowtail coyote and big flasher, usually just as we thought we were about to hit bottom. When we got back, we had 2 of the 7 fish the checkers had seen at Everett for about 40 boats. Be careful of all the stuff in the water!!!

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