We spent Wednesday and Thursday fishing at Neah Bay. The fishing wasnt great but we had a good time.

We wanted to go outside to try Makah Bay for some kings and better bottom fishing but the weather didn't cooperate for us. It was super foggy both days until well after noon. By the time the fog lifted on Wednesday it was getting too late for us to make the run outside. On Tuesday the fog lifted a little earlier, but the wind kicked up just before we decided to head out side. When we got to Tatoosh, there were too many breakers in the passage and it looked pretty rough outside so we chickened out and stayed inside both days.

The bummer was that after we decided it was too rough to go outside, we drove all the way down to Sail Rock to do some more bottom fishing. Shortly after we got there, the wind died and the ocean smoothed out like a giant lake. By the time we thought to try outside again, it was too late in the day and we needed to pack up for the trip home.

We started out bottom fishing both days mainly because of the fog. It was too hard trying to steer a straight line in the heavy fog, plus I wanted to be able to maneuver quickly in case we had to get out of someones way in a hurry. So we just drifted and bottom fished until we could see more than 50 feet - which wasnt until sometime after noon both days.

We caught small coho both days right after the afternoon tide change. All fish were caught in about 200 ft of water and 60-70 ft down on the wire. Out of the 6 fish we got to the boat I think the largest was maybe 4-5 pounds and most were maybe 3 pounds. Pretty small. We used purple and green 8" flashers and blue and green hoochies. The best producer was the purple flasher with a blue splatter back hoochie with a sparkley insert. We used salted herring stripes added to the hoochies on the top hook. We only kept 3 fish - two hatchery and one wild. The rest were too small to mess with.

Bottom fishing wasnt great either but it was still fun. We got one nice Cabezon and a few black rock fish and one large Irish Lord that we kept. My brother managed to catch two black rock fish at the same time using a greenish bass fishing type worm and a bass type swim bait on separate hooks. Most of the fish were caught on 3oz to 5 oz lead head jigs with curly tail plastics in various colors - some with herring strips. We tried lots of places and caught a few bottom fish almost every where we tried but it was never on fire.

The best bottom fishing was in 40-90 ft of water around the west end of Waadah and on the south side of Tatoosh. We also tried a bit down around Sail Rock but didn't get anything worth keeping. I think we hit almost every rock there was between Waadah and Tatoosh.

We stayed at the Cape in town. The new cabins are very small but nice and clean and the showers were actually big enough to get into and out of and the shower heads were more than high enough. The bunk beds are a bit small but not as bad as some we have stayed in. We ate breakfast and dinner at the Warm House and the food was good and plentiful. Be warned though that the town shuts down early and doesnt open up early! You cant get breakfast before 7 am and they close at 8PM. The grocery store also doesnt open till 9 am. Lucky for us Big Salmon had the ice we needed.

Oh - all alcohol is banned from the res now. My two brothers were majorly disappointed to find that out after we got there. They had planned to buy their beer after we got there so they were beerless for both days. I dont drink beer on the boat. Someone needs to drive and I have never really liked beer anyway, so I didnt care. I suspect they would have given this a 1 star trip rating for that reason alone :) My biggest disappointment was no Lings!

We talked to the fish checkers and several people on the docks and most were doing about the same as us - a few bottom fish and plenty of small coho. Some of the folks who made it out to Makah Bay did very well on kings and silvers and bottom fish, but that was not a guaranteed thing either. One of the checkers said they had seen one king that was over 30# and several in the 20's but most were in the teens.

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