It’s Easter… and sunny… and no wind, do I dare ask? I did and it was OK so boat in tow my son and I headed south to Everett for a few hours of salt therapy. We arrived at the Everett launch about 7:00 and were underway shortly thereafter. We had to be home by 11:00 so we only had a couple hours to fish but two hours was better than none. I had a tentative game plan and a couple backup ideas just in case the bait wasn’t where I figured it would be. We went gear down in about 110’ of water off the south end of Hat Island and started trolling west at about 2.6 mph. I had just got the second line to depth and set in the downrigger clip and made a depth adjustment to the first rig down when it breaks out of it’s clip and the fish is absolutely smoke’n line off the reel. The fish had hit off a meter mark just below a suspended bait ball. It was pretty cool, gear had been running at 110’ and I brought it up to the meter mark at 72’ when a few minutes later it was fish on. My son was sound asleep on the floor of the boat and by the time he was awake to take the rod I had had the fish on for about 15 minutes. He fought it for another 5 minutes or so and suddenly the fish just disappeared. We estimate the fish was 17-20 pounds so with our time limitations it was a heartbreaker.

By the time we got our act back together the bait had headed out of town so we picked up and motored over to one of my back up spots, a series of underwater canyons in 120’ of water about ½ between Camano Head and Hat Island. With the ebbing tide the area tends to hold a lot of bait and when we arrived there was a massive carpet of bait hugging the bottom. Gear down we had time for one pass before we had to point the nose of the boat towards the barn. I kept the balls in the mud while we worked the area and about 15 minutes into run the starboard rod pops the clip and it is fish on. While getting my son dialed into his fight the port rod just explodes and we are into a double. Since fish were heading opposite directions I pulled the boat out of gear and we got down to business. Again about 15 minutes into the fight my son’s line goes slack. He thinks that he lost the fish and starts to casually reel in the line but I am thinking that his fish was heading right at the boat. Anyway, long story short with the slack line the fish shook the hook. I think the fish was 10-12 pounds, a nice blackmouth but no time to grieve we had number two of our double to deal with. My fish was incredibly hot and was making one long run after another. About 75-100 yards out the fish shows on the surface and actually jumps pulling the flasher clear of the water. Ok the fight was now officially nerve-racking… About 10 minutes later my son expertly slides the net under our fish and after a quick check for extra fins the fish poses for pictures and into the fish box it goes. We were officially out of time so we buttoned things up and headed for home.

We were running 11" green and red flashers and started out with a 3.5” Irish Cream spoon on one side and a candlefish hoochie on the other side. Both were lathered up with anchovy goo. After the first fish gobbled up the 3.5" spoon I switched the hoochie out for an Irish Cream Coho Killer spoon. The big fish of the day was caught on the Coho Killer. A fantastic few hours on the water and we were home on time with our 15+ pound blackmouth.

---