Shilshole/Meadow Garden 12-3-17?

Nice reports, a lot of action out there!  Sounds like it was jigging over trolling kind of day?  Didn't have the time to take advantage of most of the day unfortunately hope to catch you guys out some other time.

I think Trident 13 went there intending to jig with his new Shimano jigs after he trolled a bit to find the fish. I went there ready to try whatever would let me catch fish, and once I saw the bait balls and wasn't getting hits trolling I started dropping jigs on their heads until they bit in self-defense.

Jigging over trolling by design along with a jigging friendly tide. Jason learned the hunt and seek method by dropping low, waiting for a passing bait ball to drift over and pulling up and even through it very quickly before it broke up or went past. There would have been a lot of maneuvering to troll through them. The tide/minimal wind actually made it a good day to have tried up by you off the Kingston ferry. Weather looks good next week although a huge tide. Could hit shilshole again and launch from the parking lot and ride it north for a bit, pound the slack and ride the flood back but that tide makes the green can at nisqually, Kingston and Edmonds a little frisky unless you hit the short slack. Some nighttime 15-16 foot tides this week. That’s dang near river fishing.

Yea I was able to drop a trap for a little bit and got a couple of crab but didn't get to do much fishing.  With those swings I may just try to hit that short slack window and see what happens if I do get out. 

Smoke and Jason,  if you look at this "current" chart and take the time to figure it out by checking the Seattle tide and cross referencing where you're thinking, you'll see that the inside Shilshole typically has a circular current even if the tide is ripping.
http://nsgl.gso.uri.edu/washu/washuc77001/washuc77001_part2.pdf

If the wind isn't bad, a little careful management allows you to ride in circles, kinda.  it's the same around Point-No-Point which is notorious for current.  There's a great launch that never received a ramp (?) right near the point with nice restrooms to change into.  If that marine area is open, you can paddle out, ride the rip (don't go to far out and watch for shipping lane waves) you can circle right around.  There's even a little restaurant reachable from a beach pull out for a meal or what-ever makes you brave.

If you change the #2 in the link to 1, 2 or 3 you can use the link to move around other area in Puget sound to watch current tendencies.  Don't bet your life on this, but it's more accurate than not.  There are hiding places in big tides around shilshole where the currents will push and hold bait.  Edmonds/Kingston? Not so much.

I think I'm going to head back down to Shilshole Bay in the morning. I'm also considering using the boat ramp to launch instead of the beach. I didn't mind having to wash all the saltwater off as much as dealing with the sand in and on everything. I don't mind walking the kayak from the non-trailer spots over to the boat ramp in return for not having to deal with the sand. I picked up a few new jigs, including an 80-gram Shimano brand butterfly flat fall jig and a 100-gram (the smallest they make) butterfly flat fall jig from Reeldiculous fishing on Amazon. I've got the new Cold Water low profile line counter reel on a medium heavy rod with 40-lb braid, so I should be able to be set up well for both trolling and jigging. I hope the chinooks are there like last week, so I can do some jig testing. I have at least six jigs I want to work through on testing. I'm interested to see if the slower fall of the flat fall jigs to stay in the strike zone longer is worth it taking longer to get down to where the fish are as they are schooling through with the bait.

Best of luck Jason. You’ve got a good plan. At this point even after a large x mas party I’m still planning to tap sammamish got the first time ever.  Have the new low profile 350 okuma and the rebuilt pan battle II spinning reel to test out. I’ll bring the downrigger but have it on good knowledge cuts might be near the top.

Looking forward to hering how you do.

Not sure if that was you I saw out there getting your salmon taken by the seal Jason, sun was so bright out there.  They were a problem all morning long for sure.  I had a fairly late start but got into some undersized ones right away on a crippled herring that were easy to pop off with no issues. 
Swapped to a p-line and a point wilson for a bit which got shakers and flounder then the current during incoming made jigging with the light ones I had with me impossible so had to eventually call it.  Water got pretty choppy about then as well but still manageable. 
All in all a pretty nice day out, looking forward to getting my battery for my finder which should help things a bit.

Not sure if that was you I saw out there getting your salmon taken by the seal Jason, sun was so bright out there.  They were a problem all morning long for sure.  I had a fairly late start but got into some undersized ones right away on a crippled herring that were easy to pop off with no issues. 
Swapped to a p-line and a point wilson for a bit which got shakers and flounder then the current during incoming made jigging with the light ones I had with me impossible so had to eventually call it.  Water got pretty choppy about then as well but still manageable. 
All in all a pretty nice day out, looking forward to getting my battery for my finder which should help things a bit.

That wasn't me that got the fish stolen. That was user "Dawn Patrol" who posted about in another thread.

Blackmouth from Kayak

I was out yesterday at Shilshole Bay from about 8am to 2pm. I launched from the boat ramp instead of the beach, which I liked much better thanks to not having to deal with sand in/on everything. I started out trolling just like the week before. I hooked up on 18 to 21 inch chinook three times in a row trolling through one specific area just out from the mouth of the sheltered harbor area. I was using a green/red/white 3.5 coyote spoon with a 42" leader behind a 3oz banana weight. As I was letting out line for a fourth fish, I evidently let it out a little too quickly and hit bottom, where the spoon got snagged up and broke off. I had another spoon of the same model/size in 50/50 green and chrome, but I decided to get started with the jig testing instead.

Over the next several hours, I tried an assortment of vertical jigs. For each of them, I was using 40lb braid to a #4 snap swivel, with a 42" leader of 20lb flouro to a double snap (to make it easy to switch jigs). I waited until I saw a bait ball or individual larger fish on the fish finder and then immediately dropped a jig down to that depth or just below (or bottom if it was within a few feet of the fish finder marks) according to my line counter reel and jigged vertically. The fish were in 40 to 65 feet of water and the marks varied from 25 feet down to the bottom.

I'll write up more later when I'm not at work, but the star of the day was a blue/chrome Gibbs 2oz crippled herring jig. It had by far the highest ratio of hits. More than half the time I dropped it into bait or individual larger fish, I got a hit on it. In hindsight, that probably shouldn't be a surprise since most of the bait was herring.

Glad to hear the crippled herring was the right choice out there  !  Yea I actually saw Dawn Patrol getting towed away but there was another guy who was posted up next to me during that time who also got taken, thought it might have been you. 

Nope.. I had a big one following me around for at least 30 minutes. I kept moving slowly away from the seal and caught two fish during that time and had them to the boat in about 10 seconds or less, thumbing the spool hard to completely stop any runs before they got going. Neither time did the seal show up at the kayak and only once did I see it cross under me on the fish finder. I was getting farther away from the area that I wanted to fish and I finally decided that I might as well get a good video of the seal staying so close to me, so I turned around and headed back toward that area which happened to be the same direction that the seal was. It surfaced again facing away from me soon after I changed direction and turned to face me in time to see me getting closer than I think it expected me to be (but still 20+ feet away). As I stopped pedaling, it visibly panicked and turned away from me to jet away. I never saw it surface again.

Crap. Just as I was tieing up cutthroat gear I noticed a favorable tide off shilshole. Late notice, and I’m still feeling rage need to hit cuts, but an early tide could make for a good time to offer the fur burgers a meal off golden gardens. Just checking interest on short notice

I'd love to but I have a couple shooting matches tomorrow that I'm both shooting in and helping run. I also have two matches on sunday that I'm the match director for, so no chasing fish for me this weekend. I start a 2-week vacation next Wednesday or Thursday, though, so I'll be up for fishing then.

Also, if I didn't have those shooting matches tomorrow, I'd probably be headed down to Portland for the kayak sturgeon event. That sounds like a LOT of fun. 

Curious what folks are finding about the time of day and the tide effecting the bite off Shilshole.  The AM seems better, but then again I haven't fished the PM.  Anyone?

This is the tide today. 

This is the tide today: 
4:56 AM   high   12.17 ft. 
10:06 AM   low   7.36 ft.
3:07 PM   high   12.18 ft.
10:15 PM   low   -3.29 ft.

Would have been an easy outgoing tide from dawn to 10 AM, maybe 30+- minutes slack and then an easy incoming till 3 PM.

However, from 3 PM to 10 PM there's a huge 15+ foot outgoing that would make it pretty tough.  I'm not talking about night fishing.  But  if it was a huge incoming tide during the morning, when I might normally pass as that's a lot of current, it seems it would create a big back eddy toward the entrance to the marina allowing fishing in that area?  It might also push any bait to the south of the green buoy and create a circle in the pocket in front of the beach house where we tend to hook up quite often.
Lately it been fishing when there's time and dealing with the environment as best as possible.  Just wondering if anyone is charting or interested in charting catches and noting time and tide tendencies.   

For new comers, this is the area I'm referencing:

I fished today from about 9am to 1pm.  Thought the forecast looked awesome with low winds and a pretty small tide swing during that time would be ideal. The sun was shining but the winds picked up a lot more than forecasted and kicked up some good waves.  I also didn't feel much of a slack today, call me crazy but it seemed like the water was pushing me towards the marina the whole damned time.  Also nice to meet you out there ballardbrad, man was I envious of your peddle kayak today!

Didn't get a lot of quality fishing time, spent most of it paddling back to reposition and eventually had to pack it in as my arms were calling it quits.  Only hooked up with one good fish the whole time and it shook me off with a great arial display, with several others after tossing the hook to truly let me know it wasn't my day.  I am 0/3 so far on my keeper-sized blackmouth so far lol.  The rest were shakers and flounders, per usual.               

The last few times I've fished golden gardens I've hit it around 7-9am to start and finished off around 12-2pm.  There seems to be a good bite right off the bat every time (except today) and then another as the water picks up after the middle slack and the one I got into today would fit that description, probably around 11ish maybe?