Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service
This is really a two for one report. Like most folks who launched out of Shilshole, my primary goal was to score some crab and try for silvers while the pots soaked. Launching around 9:30, their was a pretty thick fog bank that had settled in and was present for 3/4 of the ride over to the south side of Jeff Head. Once I was out of the fog I immediately noticed lots of porpoises and surface biat in the area. I completed my run towards shore, dropped my pots and headed back out in search of silvers. Unfortunately all I hooked into was a steady diet of shakers and it didn't matter what I had at the end of my line. I started out using small spoons as the surface bait was in the 3" range and they slayed the shakers, so I next up was a hoochie tipped with herring. Same results, and it didn't matter if I was fishing at 45' or 120', those little crappers where everywhere. After a couple hours I ran in to check the traps, lots of crab, many undersized and half of keeper size were softshel and I ended up with 3 on my first set. Rebaited and dropped the pots again slight further south and set off in search of a silver larger than the flashers I was using. The fishing went pretty much the same as before and after an hour and a half I had had enough and went to pull my traps and leave for the day. The first pot yielded my largest crab of the season, and it was a rider to boot! I did manage one more keeper which gave me a limit for the day, but I still can't get over the ratio of softshell crab that I have run into this season, I don't ever remember it being this bad. When I reached to dock around 3:00pm, the checker at the launch had recorded 4 coho for the day and said that they all looked to be resident fish.
Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service