June 3-4, Sekiu Halibut Derby

*** EDIT 5/4/06 ... decided to head to Sekiu, see details bellow ***

I have a hall pass for the June 3-4 weekend as the girlfriend will be travelling for work.  I was starting to think about what a good trip would be.  A couple thoughts:

1) Columbia River shad and sturgeon.  Around Bonneville somewhere.  I have never done this fishery so have no clue where to begin.
2) Neah Bay!!!
3) Eastside somewhere??

Anyone game?

-Allen

Hey Allen I'll start checking into it, July is better for me but maybe I can work it out.  Will know more by next week say 15th. Keep me updated and thanks for the hard work setting up the site.

Polepole,
I've been thinking of looking into Sekiu area, depending on seasons.  I'm wide open as to dates (so far that is, work will likely change all that soon) and I'm not really set on any particular location except if it requires a long weekend or more to get there.  My wife seems to have bestowed "Billionaire" status  on me with regard to WAF account points, but the one thing that really bugs her is when I go out on the water on my own.
Fishin-T

If you're thinking Sekiu, then you might as well go the extra 30 minutes and hit Neah Bay.

I don't think Salmon will be open in either place that weekend.  Halibut may have closed by then in Neah Bay (MA4), but will have just opened in Sekiu (MA5).  If we really want to hit up the butts, and I know you will want to, we can hit the mouth of the Sekiu River.  The lingcod limits are 2 in MA4 and 1 in MA5.  The rockfish limits are 10 in MA4 and 3 in MA5.  I thought it was 1 in MA5 but I noticed in the new regs that it is 3 west of Slip Point.

Don't worry Charles, we'll have a weekend in July as well (and Aug, Sept, Oct)   

I still have this bug in my head telling me to try to Columbia River sturgeon fishery.  Something about hooking a 10' beast from the kayak.  But again, I know nothing about how to do this, nor am I familiar with the area.  However, you can probably hook shad all day long in that area in early June.

-Allen

I agree with Allen, that the only reason to go to only Sekiu, is if halibut is your target, and Neah isn't open. For rockfish and lings, Neah Bay is far superior. BTW, I fished the area between Shipwreck and Kydakah (sp?) last year, without success. Very easy launch, though. I started at the mouth of the bay, ~100' deep, 1/4 mile east of the Sekiu R. Next time I would try farther out, starting nearer 200'. Farther east, but also intriguing to me is Salt Creek. Clallam County campground on the strait; supposed to be very nice. It's about half way between P.A. and Sekiu, and might not be fished as hard as some areas along the strait. (Also, the rest of the Sound will still be open.) Anybody notice, in the papers last week, that someone caught a 140# halibut at Dungeness Spit?

Don't know what will be possible for me that weekend. I suspect I'll need to stick to the east side as we're saving up for a family vacation the last week of June. (BTW, at least part of that will be on the Oregon Coast between Cannon Beach and Tillamook Bay. I'll probably take a cattle boat out of Garibaldi. A couple years ago, I took a trip out that ended up fishing just a mile or so off the beach at Cannon Beach. Very interesting area; lot's of boilers and rocks. Besides the usual limit of blacks and lings, I caught/landed 1 halibut (40#!!) and broke off another. I can't wait to have a kayak to fish this area!!)

 On this side I would be interested in Chelan, Banks, Curlew (musky/pike crosses!!) or Moses/ Potholes. Oh, and Big Twin, here in the Methow, is putting out some hefty rainbows.( Sunday afternoon, in a nasty wind, I caught 1@14", 3@18-19" and 1 spawned out buck ~23". )

Thanks Pisco for pointing out that there is a halibut derby at Sekiu that weekend put on my Olsen's (http://www.olsonsresort.com/).  I'm going to plan on heading out that way.  Who's game?

Head out Friday evening after work, catch a ferry from Edmonds, shoot over to Sekiu.  Fish Saturday and Sunday.  Back home Sunday after collecting the prize money!!!

-Allen

Yeah!  The Sekiu halibut tounament... that's what I meant to say.. yeah, there you go, that's the ticket 

Oh, yeah, I definitely want to be there for that one.  At the very very least, I think that we'll get to eye ball some very nice fish.  So how about you Snag-a-butt?  This sounds like just your kinda thing!  You too Pisco!

Has anybody scoped out some near by camping yet  ?

Fishin-T

Sounds like a plan man...the timing might be tuff for me but i'll try and make it. If I cant squeeze it in maybe i'll fish sombrio or Muir creek on this side and we can compare BUTTS 

Cheers,
Snag

Sounds sweet. Don't know if I could swing it.  Any body up for carpooling it?

Don't remember any camping near town. I've always slept in my vehicle, or camped a ways west of town.

Mr. Sicko,

I'm absolutely up for car pooling.  Somebody speak up and commit to it and I'm there for you man.  I've got a fair amount of halibut in the freezer right now, so if I catch anything on this trip I'll be wanting to give away the lions share of it.  The wife just won't hardly get around to cooking it. 

Fishin-T

Okay, so here comes my incredibly ambitious derby plan:   

The current on those two days flows at about 1.1 to 0.1 knots to the west all day long.  There is a VERY good looking halibut hangout type sandy shelf that's at about the right depth and only 0.5 to 1.0 miles from the shore line that starts just east of Sekiu at Slip point and runs all the way east to Pillar point, or about 10 miles.  My Fish-n-Map shows most of this strip to be "very good" for halibut.

My wild-assed plan, weather permitting, would be to leave a car in Sekiu, but start at dawn crack from the Pillar point end and drift with the ebb tide for most of those 10 miles!  I say "most" because we'd need to paddle some of it (the current will only average about 0.5 knots) to get to Sekiu before about 6 pm.  Maybe even camp at Silver King campground to increase chances of an early start and pack lots of eats because it would probably be a 10-12 hr day on the water, although we could easily come in to shore for lunch and pit stops.

So how about it?  Any input out there?  What about you, Polepole?  You've probably got the most experience with this kayak stuff... is this even feasable?  We'd always have the option to turn back against a pretty slow tide up till about 3 miles down stream.  Just think of it, those motor guys wouldn't have any advantage with more bait-on-the-bottom time than us!  I'm thinking that we could take turns towing each other real slowly (and that doesn't take much work) during the slack tide and that would help us get into Sekiu sooner too.  If any of us do it, we'll definitely want to stick together for this one.

Fishin-T

I think there is a Clallam Bay county park that would take a little bit off this plan instead of having to paddle all the way into Sekiu.  The largest Halibut out of the area was taken off Slip Point last year.  A backup plan would be to hit Slip Point from that park.

Another 1 way drift possibility is from Sekiu to Kydaka Point.  I've caught halibut off The Caves there near Sekiu and have heard that whole stretch to Kydaka (mouth of Hoko River) is good for halibut.

-Allen

I like the idea of a one way drift, but it would be dependent on a couple of things. 1) The weather- it can get pretty lumpy on the open strait, esp. a fresh breeze from the west against the tide. In fact, if the breeze is more than 10mph, it'll feel like your paddling uphill, and will negate the tidal push.  2) I would check the derby rules for check-in/weigh-in times, and whether you have to arrive (for weigh-in) by water. It's not unusual to have weigh-in in the early afternoon. And if you have to arrive at the weigh-in, from the water, a one way to Kydaka won't work.

Still have no idea if this trip is possible for me, but I'm, working as hard as possible to build up the WAF! 

Area launch spots ... http://www.sekiu.com/kayak.asp

-Allen

Pisco,

Yeah, I too had thought about the wind.  But for the most part, you do whatever it is you gotta do, and maybe a drift chute will help as well.  But you're totally right about the rules, and I hadn't considered that very much at all.  I'll get on the ball and e-mail Van Riper's and scope out the rules.

Fishin-T