My boat must have crossed paths with a time machine. When I turn the key the boat and its passengers are transported back to the 60s, dare I say again “The good old days”. Rating this trip was a bit of a challenge; although we headed back in 2 fish short of our limit, it wasn’t because of the fishing was tough. In fact, it was off the charts incredible! In targeting larger fish, we released a number of legal fish. We also released a number of unclipped chinook that were in the high teens and managed to break off 3 fish that were solidly pushing 20 plus. I’ll take full responsibility, as each were preventable gear failures and I’ll touch on that later.

Knowing that I had Sunday off and no other plans, I started planning my aquatic adventure. Saturday night we had overnight grand-kids and due to some crossed wires, I thought that an old fishing buddy was in Chelan so I had planned to run solo. Ok by me, no pressure to produce and I could experiment a bit. At the last-minute Tony called and said that he was headed over the pass and could join me Sunday morning. I told him that the wind forecast was squishy and I wanted to do an exploratory trip and he was onboard with whatever we did.

My plan; to fish the Marine Area 6 opener. First stop would be Eastern Bank, then if required hop the offshore banks from there. I met Tony at 5:00 Sunday morning, hit Holiday Market to top off the boat with non-ethanol and was in the water at Cornet Bay by 5:30 or so. Course set for Eastern Bank we pushed under the Deception Pass bridge in the dark. The night sky was waning as we passed Smith Island and the 19-mile run was uneventful. When we arrived at the bank the only other boat onsite was John Keizer’s 27’ North River Seahawk O/S, Salt Patrol. With the big guns being there I was thinking that I had made the right call.

Tony and I got to work. While John was focusing on a deeper troll, I had planned to work the candle fish schools up on the bank in 80-110’ of water. As much as I hate to introduce newer technology into my gear we started with 11” Pro Troll ProFlash flashers. On one side of the boat we ran a 3” Goldstar Kingfisher Cookies and Cream spoon and the other side, an Olympic Tackle candlefish fly tipped with salted herring strips. Gear down and the hunt on I was thinking no candle fish on the meter, maybe my shallower plan had holes in it. Suddenly the whole boat shudders and one of the riggers pops. Thoughts of candlefish clear my mind as we are into the first fish of the day. The first take down turned into a double and after a bit of the salmon two step we slid the net under the first keeper of the day. Although over the 22” minimum the second fish was released.

From the initial fish up until the tide change at around 10:30 we enjoyed crazy good salmon fishing. Multiple doubles, many teener wild fish, catch and release of a number of 23-25” clipped fish, lost a handful of fish and even did battle with a halibut. We would run the balls down to the bottom and then bring them back up 5 feet or so. Our trolling speed was 2.5-3.2 depending on the local current. Our lures were running 42” behind 11” Pro Troll ProFlash flashers with a 20’ setback from the release clip. After the tide change, we had to go on the hunt. We decided to move out to the 130’ line and wait out the 2:30 tide change. We still enjoyed solid fishing but the bite rate was down to a fish every 20 minutes or so and fished until 4:00.

Earlier I had mentioned “preventable gear failures”. Most people that know me and now you as a NWFR reader know that I am anal regarding my fishing gear and presentation. I had intended to change the top shots on the rods that I had planned to use Sunday. This was our 3rd blackmouth trip and I often drag the gear along the bottom while targeting winter salmon. The first few feet of the top shot gets pretty mangled. Instead of doing my trip prep we took the grand kids to the beach and did dinner. I was tired when we got home and figured one more trip…

I was wrong, the top shot failed on one of our larger fish. Me bad, and I rigged a backup rod. In short order we are on another quality chinook and after an extended battle the top shot pops again. Ok this is getting old, but instead of tying on a new top shot I break out yet another backup rod and reset the gear. I didn’t want take the time during a hot bite and actually correct the problem. As luck may have it yet another slab breaks us off and with it went my last candlefish fly. By not doing a 10-minute fix it cost us 3 bragging rights sized chinook. I guess that I was due, we hadn’t lost a nice fish in a couple years. Lesson learned; heck ya but I still haven’t changed out the top shots…

In spite of the gear issues the trip was a blast. I hadn’t fished with Tony since this time last year and it was great catching up with him. The salmon fishing was as good as I have ever experience anywhere. On a hopeful note; I hope that the fishing was a sign of things to come for our summer fishery. I believe that a number of the fish that we lost were springers or even early summer fish and not blackmouth. Regarding the top shots, I’ll be changing them later this week.

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