Memorial Weekend Fishfest

You da man!!  Sounds like my old stomping grounds at Silver King......

Awesome!  Congrats!   Is that a WA state non-salmonoid trifecta, sturgeon, halibut, lingcod?

That's one helluva report, plus great pics! Sounds like it was an awesome time!  Nice butt, Fishnut!  Nice work all around.
Pisco's crazier than I suspected taking that little wherry out in the Strait. Wind can whip up quickly out there.

All I did was stay on my home turf and go surfing on Sat, Mon, and Tue.  Not complaining, though. Nope! Its all good.
Didn't get any yak'n or fish'n in, but by yesterday evening, I had achieved success in wearing my arms out and thrashing my carcass down to a mere stub.

Nice butt!!!!!

Late report on my end, but the last week and a half has been chaotic with constant travel.

Rich and I arrived at the Twin Rivers area at a decent time on Friday evening, thanks to hitting the Edmonds ferry dock at 2:00 and being on the ferry at 2:20. No wait to speak of!

Sunset was gorgeous-



Whoa!! Wait, that's Lake Tahoe, with fresh snow.  I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'll probably be posting more pictures of Tahoe in the future.

Here's a couple of Friday's sunset.





Saturday morning was calm. We sampled the edges of a big kelp bed on the way out, but didn't spend much time at it.



It was kind of surprising at how slowly the bottom dropped off in this area. It seemed to be about a 2 mile trip to 100FOW. There were a bunch of PBs anchored up in 100-120FOW. We had heard a couple of gunshots earlier, so it wasn't too surprising when "Butthead" announced that he was hooked up.



He did some huffing and puffing and grunting to get the beast to the surface. When I circled in for the gaff, it wasn't happy about the sight of my wherry and sounded. Rich got  it back up and I attempted a gaffing with my homemade sharkhook gaff/ buoy line rig. First strike hit it's gill plate and failed to penetrate. While Rich wrestled to get it back under control and on the surface, I took a file to the hook and got it sticky sharp. The next strike was in the throat and penetrated easily. The butt was pretty whipped by this point and did a little thrashing, but nothing serious. I cut some gill arches and passed it off to Rich.



Rich got bored waiting for me to hook up, and headed to the beach (or so he said ) I kept on working it. Drifts that took me in to water shallower than 120' often ended up with snags and break-offs. Eventually I got a nice long drift that took me way east, almost to the Lyre river. I finally bagged the halibut hunt and headed in, with the idea of getting back to camp. Near shore I ended up near some thick kelp, so decided to try a few drops with a small jig. Almost immediately hooked up with a 21-22" ling, which got me juiced up to try for more.



I kept on heading west toward camp sampling occasional kelp beds, but had no more action. When I finally made it back to camp and Rich told me he had added a 27' ling to his catch for the day, I was almost in a frenzy. Rich generously offered up some of the ling for dinner, so we chowed down and headed back out just as Fishin-T showed up. The wind had picked up just as the sun dropped low and we arrived at Rich's honey hole. I managed to CNR a few coppers and a baby cabby before we headed back to sit around the fire and visit with Tom.

The next morning started as calm as Saturday. There were a couple of 'buts landed by PBers, but no love for the three of us. The wind started whistling around noon. I deployed my drift chute, which let me fish another drift, and took me a mile downwind of Tom's shrimp pot. I saw him heading to the pot, so followed him, to spot him. By this time the 3-4' swell had a couple feet of wind chop on top. Getting back directly upwind took some serious scratching. Tom and I got his pot up, but by that time had drifted downwind, again. The wherry has lots of capacity, (and is quite sea worthy) so I took the pot from Tom and we headed in. We were about 2 miles out and directly across the wind from camp. We kept our boats angled in to the wind and ferried in. We actually got upwind a little bit before reaching camp and I had fun surfing some of the waves back downwind to the beach. While the wherry does have a lot of windage because of relatively high sides (compared to a yak), it handles waves in open water really well. The original wherries worked off of the beach through surf, on the Atlantic coast. The only water I took on was from spray from the oars. Tom's OK Prowler, on the other hand, leaked quite a bit of water through his front hatch seal. I tried to get some pictures while we were headed in, but they never do justice to the real conditions.



If I had had a sail rig, I would have dropped off the fishing gear and headed back out for some more fun in the wind and waves.

Instead we cleaned out the boats, snacked for lunch and decided to take advantage of the poor conditions by catching up on our sleep.





The wind howled for the rest of the afternoon and well in to the evening. We ate and cleaned up and prepped fpr loading up in the morning.

At the break of the calm dawn, on Monday, Tom headed back to town, while Rich and I headed out to a spot in MA 4. We found a big pullout with lots of kelp nearby and portaged our gear to the water's edge (the tide was out). As soon as got near a little patch of kelp, I immediately started picking up underlings, rockies (coppers and blacks) and greenling. After burning that spot out, we headed to a bigger patch that also had a little rip created by structure. There were blackies in the kelp busting the surface (looked like they were chasing crab larvae) but they would have nothing to do with my bigger weedless lures, so we tried focusing on the structure on the outside of the kelp. We caught a few coppers and greenling but it soon slowed down. Then I went probing around the kelp, again, and was immediately rewarded with a savage strike from a ling that busted my 10# line in the kelp. The ticket turned out to be using light walleye jigheads (3/8th- 1/2 ounce) with light wire hooks on 20# braid casting gear. The light jigs dropped slowly, which was key to getting strikes. The braid would cut through the kelp, and the light wire hooks would bend straight and pull out, if snagged. I probably ended up landing 20+ fish and keeping a limit with a ling, 4 blackies and rounded out with greenling. It will probably be my only big saltwater trip of the year, so I stocked up.



I dropped Rich off at his place that evening and got back home to the east side of the mountains early on Tuesday morning. I spent the day unloading, cleaning, freezing and sealing fish and packing for the next day. My wife and I got up at 3:30am on Wednesday morning and headed to Wenatchee and the airport. By 10:10 we were in Reno, and a couple of hours later we were in South Lake Tahoe, where she had a job interview on Thursday. The interview went well for her and I made some contacts at local ski hills and flyshops. The upshot is that I'll probably be down there by this fall. Going to be quite the change after 27 years in the boonies of the Methow, but there will also be some advantages. I've got older parents on the CA coast and Southern OR, so I will be much closer to them. Since I started out on NCKA (before Allen started NWKA) it will also give me a chance to catch up with some of those other folks.

I had a hoot hanging with Rich Butthead and T this past weekend. I hope we get to do it again. Thanks for the halibut filets, Rich. We had some on Tuesday, and it was sweet!

Thanks for the sleeping beauty pics, Bill. Too bad "The Sheriff"woke me out of my wet dream. Thinking
strictly piscatorial. Had an awesome time.

Great reports. Looks like you guys had a blast!

nice butt fishnut!

Wow you guys, what a great trip. Thanks for the entertaining report.

fishnut,

I've been thinking of the shark hook/gaff/buoy rig myself... would you recommend it the way you have it setup now or after using it would you make some changes? Did the hook have enough outward angle to bite the way you wanted on such a large flat fish?

Nice fish man

Wayne. That was Pisco's gaff/float system. Actually, I'd recommend a 44 magnum to all but Kardinal"ow,my
Leg".x3

The shark hook gaff worked fine, once I stuck the halibut in the correct location. I would like to have an extra inch or two gap between point and shank, but since I get out for 'buts only rarely I'm not going to bother with spending a lot of money. Tweaking the angle of the point out a little would probably help. It was pretty subdued once I got it on the gaff, so there was no test of the buoy system.

Wayne. That was Pisco's gaff/float system. Actually, I'd recommend a 44 magnum to all but Kardinal"ow,my
Leg".x3

Ha ha! I could try that in Canada but I have a feeling I'll be reporting back on something else

@Pisco Sicko

I should have read the opening post more carefully... thanks for the info

I believe the shark hook is a good option and that is what I rigged up for buts. After watching a pretty green fish go ballistic on the surface due to a gaff I don't it would be a good idea to gaff a 40+ but from a Yak. I think the best option is a harpoon shortened to about 3-4 feet. Rubber band the cable to the shaft so the tip doesn't fall off and tie on a decent buoy. After the fish calms down pull it along side and cut gills and let it bleed out.... then hog tie .... pretty slick system.

I agree that big green halibut are dangerous. I've had enough encounters with them to respect their muscle and explosiveness.

If a halibut is well hooked, I would avoid trying to gaff or harpoon (or net, DAMKIM) it while it's still green. Howard McKim (Ketchikan Kayak Anglers) advises giving them a love tap when they surface, sending them on another run. Unless it's a little chicken, they tend to be green the first time they surface.

My thinking was that if it's poorly hooked (i.e. lip-hooked), I'd rather yank up with a gaff and relieve the strain, than slam down with a harpoon putting more pressure on the hook.

On Rich's fish, I had my buoys and excess line out of the way in the water, in case it did explode and take off. The line was secured to the hook and wrapped with duct tape, up the handle. I made darn sure I wouldn't get caught by a bite of line or have any tangles..

I think that both ways would work well. The few fish I have seen harpooned needed very little pressure to get the harpoon head through. Just don't aim for skull. The belly is a pretty good place to put a harpoon strike and will result in a more securely hooked fish that with a shark hook.  Especially if it is a really big fish.