nwka noob! I need some advice.

I would like to give it a try this sunday north of Seattle. Any suggestions or good links for a first timer? Maybe rockfish? I have kayaked and fished before but never at the same time. :-)

Not my locale but good luck to you! Bottom fishing is a great first trip.  The more simple you can make it, beyond the basic stuff, the more fun you will have.

fyi - i believe that most bottom fishing (including rockfish) is closed everywhere in the sound right now.

Welcome.

Flounder are open year round (in all of the Puget Sound except for MA 12 aka Hood Canal) and are generally easy to catch on small jigs, jigheads with swimbaits etc. Jigging off the bottom is all that is required, very simple.

A 1 oz jighead and a Gulp! grub is what we use with great success during Heroes on the Water events. Some folks like to use dropshot rigs as well. 

Good luck

   If this will be your very 1st time combining kayaks and fishing you might want to Keep It Simple Stupid .

   I don't say this to you personally snichols442. Just that you may consider whether you want to start out comfortable and catching fish you are familiar with (whatever that may be). or make it more challenging to yourself by going into a more foreign environment .You have to make that decision yourself.

   Some folks like to plunge into this stuff headfirst without "testing the water". All of us here promote safety above all else. "No fish is worth your life" kinda stuff. Hope you have your act together.

   Go out and have fun......... and always take pictures . We all love to share.....

Thanks for the advice! I will keep you posted. I am from the east coast and rock fish was my usual target. I was not expecting a closure... Maybe I will find what is in season and go from there?

Thanks for the advice! I will keep you posted. I am from the east coast and rock fish was my usual target. I was not expecting a closure... Maybe I will find what is in season and go from there?

Wahsington's fishing regulations are extremely complicated.  I suggest you find a lawyer who likes to kayak fish and take him/her with you.   

-Spot-

Thanks for the advice! I will keep you posted. I am from the east coast and rock fish was my usual target. I was not expecting a closure... Maybe I will find what is in season and go from there?

Welcome to the site!

Any chance you're from Maryland or Virginia?   Rockfish out here on the West Coast might not be the same as the rockfish (a.k.a striped bass) you might be thinking of from the Chesapeake Bay area.  West Coast rockfish are actually a group of about 40 different species that come in a variety of colors.   There are some striped bass that have been introduced to the West Coast and they occasionally show up in places like the Columbia River.  The nearest place I know of that has any active fishery for them is the Umpqua River and nearby Coos River about 2/3 the way down the Oregon coast.

Striped Bass 


Rockfish



Our saltwater fishing tends to focus on two main groups... bottom fish (rockfish, lingcod, cabezon, halibut, flounder) and salmon (Chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, pink, steelhead). 

Oh, and like Spot said.. good luck with those Washington fishing regulations.

Brian

No I am from Ma. Tautog and scup was always easy pickings from rock formations. I will see if I can find some pictures.

yea man, switching from east coast to west coast is a whole other ball game, forget almost everything you know, or think you know about fishing, latch on to some people who have got it down and absorb every bit of info they give you.  it will not be easy, its worse than starting at zero, and will be frustrating, but with time and A LOT of patience, you will get it.  be glad there is a community like NWKA with members who are more than willing to share what they know with you and fairly often where to go to do it. 

Btw never had much luck trolling for blues or stripers back east. Thought i could do some surf casting out here. That does not seem to even exist?

Thanks for the photos.   I lived on Long Island for grad school and caught tautog a few times.   Live green crabs always worked well for me.   I also did well kayak fishing for stripers and bluefish back in the mid-90's.   I trolled mostly plastic stickbaits like slugg-Os along the surface when the menhadded "bunker" where in (usually July).   In fact, I started kayak fishing using a friend's sea kayak because I couldn't quite cast far enough out to the striped bass and bluefish busting bait on the surface near my house. 

I also spent time in Maryland and got confused by everyone calling stripers "Rockfish". 

Surf casting does exist on the West Coast but mostly for surfperch and some people manage to get rockfish from jetties and rocky headlands using surf casting techniques.

Brian

So if i wanted to troll for something in the sound this weekend what should I do?

So if i wanted to troll for something in the sound this weekend what should I do?

If you haven't already, take a look at the fishing regulations for the area you will be fishing. Yes its a bit confusing, feel free to ask if anything is unclear.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01590/wdfw01590.pdf

Considering you never have kayak-fished before, I would reccomend jigging for flounder (no minimum size and you can keep 15) as a first saltwater fishing trip...its productive and simple, see my previous post.