Wow, a fitting end to our local chinook fishery and one for the record books. Going to bed Saturday night I hadn’t settled on a plan for fishing Sunday. 2:00 alarm and a quick look at “Windy” and plans are laid. About 3:00 we were headed for the Cornet Bay launch and planned to fish a couple spots on the south side of San Juan Island. Our launch was uneventful and we were headed through Deception Pass by 3:45 Sunday morning. The moon had set early so we were cruising under a very dark night sky. The tide was running pretty hard so the pass and the various banks were pretty lumpy but we kept pushing forward at 7-10 knots.

At one point I saw an intermittent line on the radar coming toward us. It was coming in off our port bow and very strange. I maintained our course but kept a hard watch. Finally, about 10 minutes after I first saw it, I realized what it was. Out of the darkness, a huge breaking wave appeared and I had to shut the autopilot down and take the helm. Fortunately, I had enough time to take action and we rode over the wave without major incident. In the darkness there is no telling how big it was but I would guess that it was at least 10’. I have been boating more years than I care to share and logged hundreds of night time hours and never experienced anything like that.

The rest of our run went “smoothly” and our first stop was Pile Point. Gear down we started the hunt and almost immediately one of the riggers is bouncing around but the fish did not pop the clip. Rod 2 goes off while I am clearing the first fish. Unfortunately, one fish turned out to be a yellowtail rockfish and the other yet another calico bass. For the next hour or so we were busy but even though it was nonstop action it was a mix of rockfish and larger lingcod so nothing for the box. As planned, we moved on up to Open Bay/Henry Island for the tide change.

In no time we were gear down and on the hunt. As soon as we worked into my trolling lane one of the riggers pops and we release a 23” nookie. A short while later, as we start a turn at the end of my troll A clip pops and we have a nice one on, then off… Reset the gear and make the turn at the top of our troll and we are fish on again. The fish made many long runs and stayed on the surface so it was quite a battle getting it to the net. We slid the net under it and did a fin count. Too many fins so after a picture we quickly released it. Back on the troll and about where hooked the first fish the downrigger gets crushed and we are on again, 3 fish in less than an hour we were given a gift.

The fish was another tenacious fined monster and didn’t come to the net willingly. After an extended battle in traffic I had to net the fish solo, Karen was driving the boat trying to get to open water (she didn’t want to fight the fish with all the other boats so close to us and had volunteered to drive). Again, a wild fish so after a photo shoot we quickly sent it on his way. From that point we had another takedown, caught some ocean coho and a nice humpy. We did move down over to Eagle Point and fished the outer tide rips for coho, finishing the day with another ocean coho.

Our gear and method were our usual salmon drill. 11” Chili Pepper flashers, small candlefish flies or 3.5” Cookies n Cream spoons tied on 42” of 30# fluorocarbon leaders. Generally, our trolling speed was around 2.8 but varied to maintain cable angle. Our depth varied but all the salmon hooked were suspended fish. We used either herring strips (for the flies) or anchovy goo on the spoons.

Our day on the water was an incredible end for our 2020 MA 7 chinook season. We caught fish all day and enjoyed more or less nice weather. The run back in was a snooze and we were back on the trailer in no time.

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