Wow and I apologize. This report is for Sunday the 9th, basically a week ago. I have been up to my elbows since the first of the year. Shoot, I/we’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a year or so. To that note, I hadn’t even splashed the big boat since October 13th. So much for fishing every day after retirement…

So after being on the water for my post retirement job more days than not, through all the less than friendly weather we have had this winter (picture explains itself). I had a day off where there was no wind in the forecast. Short notice but we were going blackmouth fishing. As I have mentioned before, I am addicted to chasing chinook. I was so flipping excited and got the boat ready to go in record time. A quick stop at Holiday for a top off of non-ethanol and high octane 4 shot lattes and we were ON THE ROAD!

I think that we arrived at Cornet bay around 7:00 and were headed under the Deception Pass Bridge by 7:30. The night before instead of sleeping (I tried to sleep but ya right…) I had formulated a mental plan for our upcoming adventure. Even though the tidal exchange was minimal I had decided that we were going to fish the ebb along south shore of Blakely Island and then hit Lopez Flats to finish the day. Clearing Deception Pass and course set with the flat water we were on station at Blakely Island in short order.

Although I felt my plan was solid, we did a hot pass watching the meter and decided we would give it a go. I started with 11” Chili Pepper flashers ahead of one of my candlefish trolling flies/herring strip combo on one side and an untested trolling spoon from Canada on the other side of the boat. We were marking a lot of bait with an occasional salmon. I’m silently thinking that it looks like my plan was solid when one of the riggers pops. Karen was up first and after a bit of a battle she expertly leads her first blackmouth of the year to the net. The fish was 23-24” but being a bit confident we decided to release it and save our limits for a larger fish. While fishing a tight little area we had numerous drive-bys, a handful of shakers and a couple more let’s save our limit fish. We also lost a very solid fish but never saw it.

At one point the starboard rod pops and we have the southbound Decatur Express freight train on. Luckily for me, I was up to bat and this fish wanted to play. The fish would make one smoking run after another. We steered the towards open water, put the autopilot on and settled in for a long battle. The fish was a bulldog and for the longest time would not give an inch of line back. If it was the last chinook I caught this year I would feel blessed in having the opportunity to engage the tenacious creature. In the end our opponent had one too many fins and we were honored to release the magnificent beast.

We were fishing with in 5 feet of the bottom in water that was 80-140 feet deep. As previously mentioned, we were running 11” Chili Pepper flashers. I run all my chinook lures on 42” of 30# fluorocarbon. The candlefish trolling fly and a 675 Cookies and Cream Coho Killer spoon were the hot lures for the morning. Our actual trolling speed is less important than line angle but generally we were running at 2.0-3.0 mph on the GPS. The trolling fly was tipped with a salted herring strip and the spoon lathered up with anchovy goo.

After the tide change, we went and visited with friends on one of the islands and then headed to Lopez Flats where we encountered a few more shakers and released another wild fish before we called it a day and headed for the trailer. Our aquatic adventure was a long overdue blast with good weather, company and awesome fishing. I know; we didn’t take a fish home but even at that the day was a gift from the fish gods.

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