The wind forecast and my work schedule finally synced, I had a day off and the wind wasn’t blowing! We were going fishing! Specifically, we were going to fish The Bubble for chinook. I was jonesing to fish for salmon in the salt but didn’t want to drive to Tacoma or Olympia to Fish MA 13. The Bubble typically starts out slow and doesn’t really get going until the 3rd week of June. In spite of slow reports, we rolled out of the driveway at 2:00 am with promise of a little Bubble action.

After a quick stop at Holiday for a top off of nonethanol, then off to a local 24-hour coffee shack for a fill up of high-test caffeine we were rolling south on I-5. After an uneventful drive and launch we were motoring down the river by about 3:45 am. Arriving on station just as it was starting to get light, we were the first boat to the party. I quickly got 3 rods, 3 sets of gear going on 3 downriggers.

Almost immediately, the shallow rod pops and we are on our first fish of the day! Unfortunately, after a few nice runs the fish disappeared into the predawn darkness. Shortly after a gear reset another rod goes off and we are on number 2. The wife had just settled into her nest and we had the heater going so I handled this one solo. A brief fight and # 2 was alongside the boat. I didn’t measure it but it was probably 22-23“ and was safely released.

As the morning progressed, we had a number of drive-bys, a few shakers and put a 24” fish on ice. We weren’t going to keep it but it was bleeding so in the box it went. About 7:30 we were just north of Tulalip Bay and I spotted a school of bait with salmon working it on the meter. I lowered 2 of the 3 downriggers to just above the bait and hoping the salmon were actively feeding crossed my fingers. A minute or two later both outside riggers break loose. We were on a double but in the associated chaos and rod handoffs we lost one of the fish early on.

The other fish was hell bent on heading back to the Open Pacific, making one long run after another it was proving to be quite the opponent. Regrettably, in an attempt to hand the rod off to the misses the fish took the opportunity to throw the hook. No one’s fault and as Harry Hogge in Days of Thunder said “…that’s racin” (or something like that…). I don’t usually fret a lost fish but this one was a bit of a heart breaker. Although the fish was solid, easily 20#s plus it wasn’t the actual loss of the fish that was heartbreaking. It was the work that went into catching the fish that made it hard.

We were running 3 rods and I think that I pulled them 150 times to clean jellyfish goo off the lines and gear. I have never experienced the shear biomass of jellyfish fishing the Bubble before. It was a lot of work. The image of my fish finder screen looks like I hit the salmon jackpot but unfortunately most of, if not all of the marks are large jellyfish. We ran from one end of the Bubble to the other and there was no getting away from them.

We were running our standard chinook gear; a 20’ 25# top shot, a chartreuse\red 11” flasher and 3.5 Coyote spoons lathered up with Smelly Gelly. I was trying to chase meter marks but with all the jellyfish it was near impossible. The good news was that whenever I found bait, I was able to get a hit out of it. Out trolling speed was around 2.6-2.8 MPH. We hooked fish at various depths between 38’-82’ in water 60-240’ deep.

Overall a perfect day on the water. When we got done fishing, we went on a cruise looking for whales. We ran across past Camano Head, up towards Holmes Harbor, down to Mukilteo and then back to the launch. No whales but we needed to kill some time while the minus 3.4 tide came in a bit. On the way home we hit Ray’s Drive-In on Broadway in North Everett and had an awesome burger, fries and fish n chips. An excellent end to an already fabulous day.

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