Rock Sole in Pueget Sound

Careful ... would you really eat a flounder that came from the Everett area?

That was the first thing I thought of, too. Everett has a long industrial history, including pulp mills and smelters (zinc, arsenic, lead, cyanide). There's not much apparent evidence of them now, but that doesn't mean much. BTW, Sand Island is the spoils from dredging the Everett harbor, and probably a hotspot. 

Some alternatives- 

• North of the Edmonds Dive Park
• the bay NW of Pt. No Point (during ebb tide)
• the area north of the west end of the Hood Canal Floating Bridge
• the North end of Camano Island,; there's a couple of county parks/access
• Kayak Pt. County Park, north of Marysville ($5 entry)

I'll be over there the weekend of Mar.16-18, with my little one. We'd like fishing a protected spot, in good weather.

The tides look good, that weekend.
http://www.dairiki.org/tides/daily.php/tow/2007-03-17

the sole in the sound are good eatin... but true there are some places I wouldnt want to eat them from... the biggest thing I look for when I catch them is WORMS some of the ones I've seen caught are just loaded with blood worms... a good way to check for this is to hold them up to the sun light and look through them (well unless you got a 'hogzilla' flounder... 0_o), or look on thier belly for dark areas... found they usually live around the fins or head areas... but if you dont find any worms and you feel safe about eating them out of the waters you were fishing for them then I say go for it and eat the tastey buggers! 

I'm gonna try and fish for these buggers probably next Sat. in my right next to my place in Richmond Beach. It's my local spot and I'd like to get to know all the fish in the area so will be going after them. I've already found a ton of Sculpin shore fishing which was a blast.  I know about worms so I'll be looking at them closely before any eating. Then again where I'm at on the Sound I'm not sure I want to et any local fish anyway.. just the ones passing through!! 

Z

I fished on monday @ Richmond Beach for rock sole and they were freakin going off! Hard to keep the guys off my hook... and I was using a 4 oz. Braid Slammer jig! I was hoping for some larger flatfish but the Sole wanted the jigs more. They really hammered it and sometimes only took all of 10 seconds from the time I hit bottom. Kept 2 nice sized ones and man, they are tasty. I'm not sure why they get such a bad rap... maybe 'cuz they look funny.

I tried depths from 40 to 150 ft and it seemed that they all hung out from 45-65 FOW. I think flashy really works for them. I tried some plastics that got some hits also but the Slammer jig got repeated hits. Good fun on a light rod!

Z

Pole2.. notice the brown/white rice.. How does that song go again?... Mahogany and Ivory

Thanks Z for bringing back memories of my childhood.  After a morning of salmon fishing we'd often times chunk up the leftover herring and send them down on the 2 hook salmon leaders for doubles of flounder.  In fact, my very first salmon was caught fishing this way.  A nice little blackmouth off Jefferson Head decided it couldn't resist the chunks as we were drifting the bank for flounders.  I was like 7 years old.

Although you surprised me that they were hitting the braid slammer.  How did they get those hooks in their little mouths?   

Z, when you get out from the Richmond Beach for salmon, head north to the oil refineries.  Fish from there north to the Edmonds breakwater and back.  That's a pretty good stretch there.

-Allen

Thanks for the tip Pole2. I noticed when I got near the refineries the bottom just dropped out to 300+ feet. At about 150-200 FOW there was a steady stream of something showing up. Still not sure if it was just the FF having trouble picking up stuff that deep or not.

And the sole.. let's say they had to be pretty motivated to get hooked. I had a setup I use for lings where I take the bottom treble off and set 2 assist hooks on the top eyelet. So the sole actually had to not just bite the jig but actually get their jaws around it sideways.. there's a lot of hungry sole down there!

Are you in town or gonna be in town soon? We gotta fish.
Z