Back to the islands. We had planned on fishing a sure thing somewhere but I woke up at 12:30 Saturday morning. Once up, I’m usually feet on the floor but I still had 4 hours before we were leaving. I went out to check on the boat and one thing led to another and I had converted the boat from a kokanee catching machine to its salmon mode. At 1:30 I wake the wife up with news of our change in plans (all OK, she was awake anyway. Something about noise in the driveway…) and we were rolling by 2:00.

After a quick stop at Holiday to top the boat off with non-ethanol we were cruising under the Deception Pass bridge before 3:00. I had considered hitting the offshore banks or even running to Port Angeles but we were doing a 4th of July party that afternoon so we decided to stay close to home and fish the islands. Course set for Eagle Point the crossing was uneventful and we were the 2nd boat on station.

Gear down we got to work; well actually I did, go figure Karen was still sleeping… Watching the meter it was a salmon ghost town. We trolled shallow, deep and even worked the offshore rips without a sniff or even any meter marks. An hour was enough so we stowed the gear and headed for Tide Point. The signs at Tide Point were a little more encouraging than Eagle Point. In previous years I had had solid early season action fishing an area a bit away from the usual Pile Point fishing hotspots. Gear down and again nothing on the meter. There was bait everywhere but no salmon. We did manage to catch and release a lingcod and a calico bass.

Before anybody tells me that’s not possible, I lived in southern California for 20 years and was known as the calico king. I loved fishing for calico bass. The fish was a 2-3 # calico. A couple nice fish but not what we were looking for. We had a very limited window to fish so it was decision time. Do we head in, hit Hein Bank on the way back in or ??? The or ??? won out and we headed for Open Bay.

We had less than an hour to fish before we had to hotfoot it and head home. There was lots of bait in the bay and a few fish on the meter. About 10 minutes in to the hunt and as we made a turn to avoid an exceptionally kelpy tide rip the port rigger pops and we were fish on. I offered the rod to Karen but she said no and graciously stepped up to the role of deckhand. After a couple line smoking runs Karen expertly slides the net under a downrigger boom and inside the cable and scooped up a nice hatchery chinook. The fish bleed, bagged and on ice it was time to head back to the Cornet launch. With the flat calm water and scenery our ride back was spectacular.

I won’t go through all the stuff that didn’t work. The fish was caught off a meter mark at 56’ in 220’ of water. As we were making the turn, I saw the fish on the meter and raised one rod to just above the meter mark. At the time our trolling speed was 2.8 mph but our speed was more based on maintaining our cable angle. The fish hit a “Holiday Sports Special” 3.5’ Kingfisher Light spoon tied on 42” of 30# fluorocarbon following an 11” Gibbs Chili Pepper flasher.

Our short visit to the islands was way fun and we got a fish for dinner. Where I can drag gear for hours and spend a whole day on the hunt for chinook, our focused trip was enjoyed. We made it home in time to get things ready for the party and even had time to wash down the boat and gear.

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