PSA DERBY 2014 - A FISH PRINCESS ADVENTURE

Fished the South King County PSA derby with the Fish Princess. BIG thanks to all the PSA volunteers who put on another GREAT event!!

Launched at Pt. Defiance at about 0500 and ran across to QMH to drop a couple crab pots. Saw an amazing sunrise set against partially cloudy skies.

Ran around Pt. Dalco to start our troll and figured it was a good sign that another boat was just landing a fish as we arrived. Things looked very fishy with bait scattering on the surface and bait and fish marked on the sonar.

Started with a diver and herring with about 65' of line out while I rigged the downrigger and and set-up our other rods for fishing. Fish Princess said she thought we got bit but we had no further action on the rod so we kept at setting the downriggers.

Used a Short Bus rotator (UV/lime) with one of my favorite Northern King lime/chartreuse on nickel spoons on one side smeared with the slime of a fresh herring.

On the other side I ran a green splatter/glow Silver Horder flasher and one of Toni's Wannafishalure salmon hoochies (the one with the purple haze body and light blue/green UV Mylar insert over soft glow beads). This one was paired with a herring teaser strip. Fished the port side deep (close to bottom) and the starboard line with a little further set-back and anywhere from 20' to 50' shallower than the port rod. Fished in water from 90' to about 175' deep and frequently adjusted the depth of one rod or the other to chase meter marks.

After I set the first downrigger rod I pulled in the diver rig to set the second rod to find that the Fish Princess had been keen on spotting a bite as our hooks were missing form the leader. This obvious signal of dogfish proved ominous. As we fished through the mid-morning tide we hooked 3 or 4 more dogfish. I would have expected this on the line with the herring teaser, but for some reason the seemed to key in on my spoon. At least the couldn't bite through all the metal on the spoon and were mostly hooked straight through the snout so releases were easy and my lines were not messed-up.

We finally managed our first chinook of the day just around Camp Sealth. Right species but wrong size at around 9"-10". It was a hatchery brat so good to see the next generation out getting fat! Of course, this little guy was released and sent back to grow bigga!

Eventually we worked out way out to a tide rip out in the bay and a bit toward Gig Harbor. Here I used my black/white e-chip flasher paired with cookies and cream tail wagger on one rod and green racer flasher with Ace Hi-fly and smile blade combo on the other. The black/white set-up got some anchovy gel and anchovy oil in a scent chamber while the green rig got some tuna or garlic tuna scent in the scent chamber and a garlic herring teaser strip. These attracted another dogfish or two and our second chinook of the day about the same size as the first. This one was also a hatchery fish and was released like the other. While he swam away, I'm not sure of his survival as one hook appeared to have penetrated his body cavity and he had wrapped himself in the leader making the release more difficult.

We said hi to Salmonberry and checked with him on a couple of passes. Also enjoyed visiting with him for a moment when I went to go get my trailer from the parking lot when we landed.

With nothing more than dogfish and shakers to show for our effort by about 1130, we decided to go haul our pots to see if the crab were any more willing than the fish. First, pot had five crab so we were hopeful. However, turned out to be 4 nice large healthy females and one undersize female...HMMM. Left this pot in the boat and off to the second pot. This one was blank (as in no crab and not a crumb of bait left) as one of the doors had stuck open - even though they're weighted).

We decided to reset our pots over on the other side of the harbor entrance where we had better luck on July 4th and beat-up on some flounders. This proved to be a good idea on two fronts. Ultimately, we discovered a bait that seemed to entice a particularly large crop of red rock crab and the Fish Princess found the constant action of mooching for the little flatties to her liking. I figure it's good practice for salmon mooching which will be one of the next techniques for her to master.

Our final tally was 5 healthy-size keeper red rock crab and a bunch of throw-em-back dungies for the day. We got the boat out of the water and ready to go down the road just in time to catch the end of the derby awards ceremony. There were some door prizes for those who were not fortunate enough to land a derby fish. Salmonberry took home a nice tackle bag courtesy of Silver Horde and the Fish Princess scored a TICA downrigger rod to add to her blossoming collection.

It turned out to be a very sunny and warm day. However, in the midst of our morning fishing we had a couple of short heavy rain squalls move through that gave us pretty good dousing and even heard a few thunder claps that, thankfully, didn't amount to anything more than that.

While the salmon fishing was sub-par, we managed to enjoy a great day together out on the water. Of course, with the start we had to our day (see sunrise pics) we couldn't really go wrong from there!

Good luck and tight lines out there!

Fish Dawg

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