This more a crabbing trip with some blackmouth fishing included to pass the time while letting the pots soak, than the other way around. Blackmouth fishing has been slow at best so I decided to target crustations and perhaps get lucky and hook into a keeper sized salmon in between setting and pulling pots. I hadn't crabbed off the Magnolia bluffs before but had read that the area can be fairly productive. We set 5 pots between 3 people on the boat and were out from 10:00am to 2:00pm. We ended up with 7 keeper red rock crabs and 1 keeper dungie, not the haul we had been looking for but better than nothing. We trolled along the bluffs out in 100+ feet of water using flasher/squid and pro-troll sting king lures. The sting king lures proved to be what the shakers were looking for, even with the large 5" lengths! I must say that I really like using the super lines for downrigger use. The low stretch in that line makes the rod tip dance when even the smallest shaker is on the other end. I am happy to report all fish were released in very good shape. The checker at Don Armini had 3 recorded keeper salmon when we left at 2:30pm. For the number of boats that were out, I'd call that some pretty tough fishing. Oh, and to top that off, there were quite a few nets out in the mouth of the Duamish. What's up with that? Are they targeting steelhead already/?

---