What a great way to spend Independence Day!

Took the Fish Princess and a friend out for some fishing and crabbing in MA11. Stopped in at the Pt. Defiance Marina tackle stop for a bait jar and a dozen fresh herring and then launched at about 0615.

High slack wasn't until about 1030 so we started out with a run to Dash Point and began trolling toward Brown’s Point with high hopes to hook-up with a Puyallup-bound chinook. It was a very fishy looking morning with bait jumping numerous times and lots of bait balls and fish marked on the finder. Used a scale/green hotspot flasher with chartreuse Ace Hi Fly with a herring teaser strip, a black/white hotspot flasher with cookies and cream tail wager spoon, and a purple haze flasher with purple/chrome coho killer fished at various depths from 40’ – 120’. With all the surface activity and some trouble with my electric downrigger, I even switched up to a chartreuse delta diver and plug cut herring at one point. Despite our best effort we did not manage to find any biters.

About 0915 we pulled in our trolling gear and made the run over to the entrance of Quartermaster Harbor. Splashed a crab ring in about 50’ of water baited with herring heads and a couple of cutthroat carcasses. Splashed one pot in about 65’ of water with some sardine chunkss soaked in Pautzke crab/shrimp fuel in the bait jar, a big cutthroat head hanging from the top of the pot and some cutthroat and kokanee carcasses in the bait box. The final pot was splashed in about 90’ of water with a similar bait arrangement to the second pot.

While the pots soaked, I decided to put on a mooching rig and drop down to bottom in about 120’ of water to see if we could scare-up a salmon or at least some bottom fish to keep the Fish Princesses busy. This turned out to be the best decision of the day. We didn't manage any salmon, but it was our guest’s first fishing trip ever and she was totally thrilled to be reeling in 12” flounders and super excited to catch a dogfish shark. At first, I was dropping plug cut herring down to bottom and working them until I got a fish on, then handing off to each of the girls in turn. Eventually, I taught them how to drop down and work the baits and each of them caught a fish on their own. We tried a buzz bomb for a little while as well with no takers. Our guest even managed to catch two flounder at a time on one drop. We all got a kick out of that.

At about 1100 we pulled the pots for the first time. The ring had just one crab – too small and female so that rig stayed on board. The first pot was much better with about 10 crab of which 2 were keepers. This pot went back down to bottom and we stationed the ring nearby. The last pot also had a good load of crab in it and we added one more keeper Dungeness and one keeper red rock crab. This pot went back down to bottom in about 105’ of water.

As we finished with the crab pots, a nice current seam was forming in the harbor and we could see bait jumping again so we put out a mooching rig and the delta diver/bait combo and alternately trolled and motor mooched along the current seam. Again no takers so we resumed playing with the small flatfish and sharks. We managed one flounder of about 15” that went into the box for our guest. Our last pull on the pots yielded another 4 keeper Dungeness crab. We discarded our bait and stowed the pots then headed for Commencement Bay with a plan to troll our way back to the marina for take-out. Final tally on crab was 7 keeper dungies and one red rock with numerous females, smalls, and a couple soft shells released. I'm confident we could have managed a limit for each of us had we put the pots down first thing in the morning before starting our fishing adventures.

The idea to fish Commencement Bay proved to be a questionable decision. First, it was approaching mid-afternoon and there was quite a crowd of boats forming for the evening festivities. This made trolling a challenge. I decided to run the Ace Hi Fly down to 150’ on my manual downrigger and just fish that rod to minimize the chance for tangles as I dodged in between pleasure craft and crab buoys to keep my troll going. I finally broke clear of most of the boat traffic and went just a short way when I noticed line was slowly peeling off my downrigger - #&*%! First thought was that I had gotten in too shallow and dragged bottom but a quick check of the fish finder revealed I was still fishing in well over 200’ of water. Next thought was there may be something wrong with the brakes on the downrigger, but that was not it either. Turns out the downrigger ball grabbed the line of a long-derelict crab pot. I struggled to winch the damned thing up 150’ with my downrigger. At last the flag appeared and not long thereafter a heavily sea-life encrusted rope, snagged in the clip between my trolling snubber and the ball. I managed to grab the rope and haul another 100’ feet or so of rope with every form of sea creature imaginable into the boat followed by a barnacle encrusted pot and the float. Chief among the plentiful sea life squirming around the messy rope was pounds and pounds of krill. I swear I’ll be picking the darn things out of my boat for the rest of my natural life! Some of the sea-life came loose and those went back in the drink. The rest of it came ashore with us for disposal. The girls we amused with a small sea star that was on the crab pot and examined it for a few moments before they set it free. The good news was that while I was struggling to deal with the derelict pot, the air show started so the girls were well entertained with acrobatic stunts by everything from biplanes to jets.

We had a great day together out on the water and even though the salmon didn't cooperate on this occasion, we made our guest’s day and enjoyed a crab feast for our July 4th dinner. Couldn't ask for anything better than quality time spent with my kiddo and her friend.

Thanks for taking me out to play again Fish Princesses!

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