Heading out West. Where to put down roots?

Sequim would be a great choice, If I were you I would check out Whidbey Island too, it is in the same rain shadow but still with in striking distance of the west side rivers and a bit closer to the east side.  Plus it would be a pretty wife friendly area to live and there would be a PX, etc at Oak Harbor

Aaron
Alas I live in the Seattle, we are in the asphalt shadow.

Here are some clams my kids and I got this morning, had a minus tide of -1.09 and thought that we would take advantage of it. There are 7 horse necks and one cockle.

bucket-O-clams

Dirty ol man

Man! those are some big clams.  Looks like some good eatin' there. 

Do any of you guys use clams for butt bait (that sounds funny writing that )?  It seems like a ready source of fresh bait if others are not available. They catch a lot of striped bass here on clams.

By the way do they have any runs of baitfish in that area that are not too hard to catch?  Something to stock up on to offset the cost of buying from bait shops etc?

Around here we get schools of manhaden that we cast a snag hook for or use a cast net, also squid that we catch with jigs in the early season.

Brad

I'm down in Oregon, but we share some things in common with our cousins to the  North.

Some of our bays/rivers get herring runs, and you can jig for herring to collect your own salmon bait (or to eat).  We have big runs of non-native shad in the Columbia and some other coastal rivers, and they are supposed to make great bait for sturgeon and halibut (and for crab pots).  Sand  shrimp are often used as bait for salmon/steelhead, and you can harvest these little guys on your own.  Also, salmon eggs are often used as bait for adult salmon (of course, you gotta catch the salmon before you can harvest the eggs).

I've not done a lot of saltwater fishing, but in my experience a lot of folks stick to artificials (big curly tailed grubs for rock fish, giant ones for halibut, spoons and spinners for salmon, etc...)  Sturgeon is the only fishery I am familiar with that is strictly a bait show.