Willapa Bay report 8/09

Pulled into Tokeland about sundown, slept in the truck.  About 1AM, the truck was being rocked by the wind!!  At dawn, the bay was a mess of whitecaps, windwaves 3-4 feet.  A couple PBs came in at 9 saying it was too choppy to fish!!  Needless to say, I did not launch the yak.  Am at the Tokeland library, waiting for the wind to ease up.  I stopped at the Smith River launch, but did not have the required DFW car parking use permit.  River nice and flat, the only fish I saw this AM was a big one (Silver??) jumping just out from the Tokeland fishing pier.
   Will try the evening high tide, assuming the conditions ease up.
   

Friday morning I noticed that the wind was blowing out of the river valley from the East. This can produce some pretty big whitecaps way out by Toke Point. The chop often will lay down if/when the wind switches, and the bay can get pretty smooth until the wind starts blowing harder than 10 or 12 mph from the N or NW. Sometimes the wind howls from the E and NE all day, though.
It got sunny and hot, with light breezes, on the river upstream from Raymond. I saw one "old timer" local woman lose two Coho (one wrapped her up in a logjam), and heard of a couple others caught and a couple hookups lost. I got skunked. Not a lot of fish around. A few, but pretty thin, yet. I was on the river from early am until early afternoon.

KT, you should have gotten one of those WDFW parking permits with your license. I always have to remember to check that I have it with me before I leave, just to make sure it isn't in my other vehicle. Nothing up the North River or Smith Creek, yet, anyway.

We took a cruise up the North R after fishing the Bay from my johnboat yesterday, since we launched at Smith Creek. My neighbor hadn't been up there yet, and I wanted to show him the place. We didn't see any salmon. Saw what looked like a jack or cutthroat splash, once.
We got skunked out fishing in the Bay, but we saw a few Coho being played and netted, and even saw a couple of 'em jump. We were having "tackle issues" right during the hot bite.    Too many boats out there, though. What a cluster!
I might be done out there for the season, or give it one more try. There's just too much very good fishing other than salmon angling this time of the year to get sucked into chasing salmon all the time. Sept is one of the better months for nearly everything!
Gotta run!