July the 3rd was one of those days northwest fishermen dream about. I was at
Neah Bay with wife Connie and fishin buddy Steve Berg with his 21 foot
Trophy. The word on the docks was that the fish were biting off Flattery
rocks, about 20 miles south of Tatoosh. So about 6 that morning we made the
long run to the fishing grounds. There were a few scattered boats when we
got there. We took a position on the south end of the cluster, pointed south
away from them, dropped the gear and started trolling. The outside rods were
dropped to about 30 feet on the downriggers, the center rod with a deep six
about 50 feet behind the boat. Things started to look good right away. I
could see many fish milling at the surface of the calm water, and the
fishfinder was singing about the schools of bait and salmon below us. After
a short troll, rods started thrashing. We had few breaks in the action for
the next 3 hours. Often 2 fish were on at the same time, sometimes 3. Those
crazy silvers would grab our gear before we could clip onto the downrigger.
Trying to get a break, I dropped my gear to 45 feet. That was below most the
silvers but right in the king's kitchen! A whole herring behind an in-line
spinner was the ticket for those. Many salmon later we headed to flattery
rocks to sample the bottomfishing. A short search found a school of big
rockfish, running from 3 to 5 pounds. We kept a couple lings too but
couldn't find any big ones. A long run back to the docks and a couple hours
cleaning fish capped a long, wonderful day on the water.

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