Bowman Bay/Northwest Island DR test 1/7

My wife and I went out to try out hand at blackmouth fishing last Wednesday. We originally planned to launch out of Washington Park, but the wife didn't like the look of the chop, so we ended up at Bowman Bay instead.

We saw a few fish on the depthfinders between the middle of the bay and Urchin Rocks. As we worked our way out to Northwest Island just before the tide change we found a massive school of fish spanning the entire water column near one of the underwater bumps southwest of the island. We got one pass at them before slack tide and then they were gone. It was back to seeing a them spread out all over the place.

No fish that day, but we got a late start and didn't get to put in as much time as I would have liked. The main goal was to test my downrigger setup and her new depthfinder.

I mounted a Scotty Depthking with a swivel mount over the end of the center console hatch on my Cuda 14. I like the setup a lot so far. I can get to everything easily and quickly, I can see the line counter, and I have enough room to paddle a bit to get my speed up while lowering the ball. I was worried about the height of the mount affecting my stability, and about it causing tracking issues due to it being so far forward. Neither was a problem when I got it out on the water.

I got lazy at one point and did manage to tangle the plug I was fishing with the downrigger cable. Lesson learned, but I might try putting a spreader bar between the cable and the ball to give me an extra margin of error in the future.

It was a beautiful day to be on the water.

Kyle

I love fishing bowman bay area. I think greenling are open year round out there as well. Pretty decent for them over on the South side of deception island. Looks like a nice day out there