Marine Area 7 - 7/17 report (sort of)

I went out fishing saturday, ostensibly for salmon but ended up finding a very nice reef, where large lings roam.  Caught several in the 28-32" range.  One of them busted my rod tip off. Don't freak out dudes, I didn't keep any.  Lings are legal by-catch when targeting cabs, so very much OK to C&R.

I've never seen this before...as I was reeling up my grub (to see if the tail was still there), as I pulled it out of the water a large ling actually came out of the water after it.  Scared the crap out of me!  I quickly dropped it back in and he went after it.  No cabezon, though Eli at Dave's is familiar with the spot and says they are there.  I'll be fishing here more.  Since it's a very small area I'm not going to post the location, but if you want to know it, PM me.

Also caught some very large quillbacks at this spot, that would've been nice to keep.  I hope one day in the future WDFW will ease up on the area 7+ Rockfish restriction.  Quillbacks and Coppers are HARDLY scarce.  And they'll pretty much bite on bare hooks.  IMHO the 120' depth restriction is quite enough to protect Canaries and Yelloweyes.  Seems absurd to not let people keep quillbacks and coppers...abundant, easy to catch, and tasty.  I'd be willing to bet yakmonkey has a different opinion though!

I did a couple of drifts mooching herring but didn't come up with anything but a sand dab and several dogfish.  I continue to be stymied by salmon, though I can't say I tried that hard since I ended up bottomfishing the reef and some rocks (for greenling, which were also abundant) that day.

Cool report TTM and nice ling. Sounds like a cool spot.. although I have a feeling if you're anywhere near there you're gonna have a hard time trying to catch a salmon.

Nice work tall man! Thanks for the report!

Very nice!

Tall we should hit Whatcom sometime. Been hitting some real nice smallmouth.

Would love to go out and not target lings sometime.

Nice fish, you've found a killer spot!  Good work!

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IMHO the 120' depth restriction is quite enough to protect Canaries and Yelloweyes.  Seems absurd to not let people keep quillbacks and coppers...abundant, easy to catch, and tasty.  I'd be willing to bet yakmonkey has a different opinion though! Smiley

  I'd love to see a shallow water rockfish retention rule enacted.  So, I'm on your side here.
   One of the justifications for closing rockfish is that it can be challenging for army of not-too-often fishermen to be able to identify one type of rockfish from another, and many non-retention species might be kept (in this hypothetical circumstance.)  As a simple example, brown rockfish inhabit areas nearly identical to coppers and quillbacks, and can quite closely resemble both of the more common varieties.  So, are you certain you haven't run across a patch of browns that you assumed were coppers?
   There is a lot of research that needs to be done to get an understanding of what the challenges really are. Here's a quote from some of my recent reading that may shed some light onto some of the issues that are being tossed around by the science people;

"It might be expected that, with all of these closely related species living in close proximity, hybridization would be fairly common.  However, this does not appear to be the case; with only a few exceptions, hybrids rarely have been seen or at least recognized." ... "An intersting exception takes place in Puget Sound (Washington), where antihybridization mechanisms appear to have broken down among copper, quillback, and brown rockfishes.  It is unclear why hybridization is common in these fishes."

(Love, et al. 2002, pg. 15-16, isbn# 0520234383 ((really good book, and cheap too)).  So, why are they only crossbreeding, and only in Puget Sound?  Curious minds want to know!
  So, the more people learn about rockfish in general, the better off the fisheries will be.  We just need to crack the whip and keep the research going, and get some kind of grassroots education thing happening, and do this without giving away our rights to fish.  The more people talk about it, the more we will be able to get that research done so we can develop fisheries management techniques that are appropriate for the challenge, and drop the current "we're not sure so we're gonna be really careful" rules.
 
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Nice man. I just got back from SJ's/ marine area 7.

Was banking on West Beach having the particular Pt. Wilson Dart I need for chinook, so I didn't get it before I left from PDX. Got there and they were out. The only thing I had remotely good for chinook was an 8oz green herring/pt wilson dart.....Way too big!

saw a few chinook jumping on the current line 400yds South of camp, jigged the bowling ball for 10 minutes and decided to go for cabs instead, ended up C&R a nice 32" ling (this time I brought the measuring tape), that managed to flop off my deck before a pic was taken

I know exactly where and how to fish for nookies up there, but didn't have the gear or the time to do it right while guiding a sea kayak tour......next year I'm going to plan a personal trip during the summer chinook run and hit it hard.....

It would be fun to round up a group to do a 4 or 5 day trip.

You are right, there are sh*t-loads of coppers and quill backs. On my SJ trip in June, we probably released 100 of them. Never seen any canaries or vermillion though. Caught a few china's there too.

Jason - 32" ling...NICE!  I bet that was fun to catch.  I'd definitely be interersted in doing a multi-day trip next year.  Keep us posted on any more San Juan salmon fishing you do.

In regards to Rockfish, thanks for weighing in Brian.  I knew you'd have some good insight.  I'm pleasantly surprised to see we agree, too!  Fascinating about the cross-breeding that happens only in the sound.  That's pretty neat, I though suppose it throws a wrench in the works with how to classify and estimate numbers (wdfw), and identify (fisherman).   I'm sure the state budgetary issues don't help either.  Research on such things takes money, which WA just doesn't have alot of right now. 

Regarless, I'd like to make my opinion heard regarding the Rockfish restriction.  Every time I catch a Rockfish - which is ALOT - I cry a little inside.  I want some attention to be paid to this.  Do I just contact my state rep or is there a better/additional channel?

link to site regarding rule change/making process (which won't be revisited until 2012  )
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/regs/rule_proposals/

to email directly (though I'd recommend reading above link info first to understand the process.
[email protected]  (haven't verified if still viable)