Short Hook and Line Report from Washington

This was probably the last day of halibut and lingcod season here in the PNW. A frind from the gym put the trip together and invited me along. We went out of La Push (excuse the spelling if its wrong). After a four hour drive we were received by awesome conditions. We hit the water at 5:00 am and 35 miles later we arrived at the spot. Spot which little by little accommodated around twenty some boats all drifting this football field size bar in the middle of nowhere in 500+ ft of water. Amazingly enough there were no tangles and you could see rods going off all around you, it was quite a site. We limited out by noon and started heading back to shore to do some black sea bass, cabezon and chinese rock fish fishing but conditions near shore didn't allow it. So we called a day and continiued on in to clean the fish and take a few pictures. Sadly I wasn't able to capture a mother killer whale and its calf (i guess) that went right passed the boat. It was my first time seeing them in the wild, I was amazed at how tall its dorsal fin was. It had to be at least three feet tall if not taller. Here are a few pictures of the crew, boat and the catch. The pics were all taken with my cell, I left the camera home. The lingcods ranged 20-25lbs and the halis were 30-40lbs. The red fish in the last picture is some kind of rock fish. I believe they called it a Picassio or something like that.

Totally. I really like the jagged coast line and the outcrops that they have up here. One of these weekends I have to get the wife over there and hike the trails. But she is not very outdoorsy so we'll see.

Thank you guys, I just wished I had more reports to share with you all.

Well, these pics were taken during the shrimp/halibut and ling opener this past weekend. The trip lasted a total of 3 days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and everything lined up perfectly even the weather if you can believe that. The ocean was literally like a lake (rare occurrence around here). The crew members were Dave (boat captain), his twins and yours truly. First thing was the shrimping which has a quota of 80/person per day. These are known as spot prawns and apparently their numbers are very healthy, this is probably to the insane regulations the state has on all fisheries and game stocks. All the shrimping was done inside Puget sound which is just a huge bay. We hit the water around 6 am, depth ranged between 300-250 ft, we dropped four pots and as soon as we were done dropping the forth one we headed back to check the first one. The bay looked like it was being invaded by hundreds of small vessels. Everybody with a boat was out there trying to get their quota which made boating around and identifying your pots quite interesting. We limited out by 9:00 am with our best pot having 213 prawns. After that was cleaning time and today as I write this report, the wife is cooking the first batch. mmmmm..... I can taste them already.

Next trip was to a place called La Push, a small fishing community with outstanding views and tiny population part of one of the local native reservations. Some of you may be familiar with this area since some of the scenes in the "Twilight" series were filmed there. We got to the place Wednesday night around 11: 00 pm, dropped the boat on the water, found parking for the expedition and trailer and called it a night. Captain slept in the boat and me and the others crashed in the back of the ford expedition in sleeping bags. We were up by 5:00 ready to tackle the day. We left the marina and 32 miles later we got to the fishing grounds. The target species were halibut and ling cod. You can only keep 1 halibut and two ling cods per day. Once again we limited out relatively early even though the competition was atrocious out there with all the other anglers. There must have been easily 200 other boats trying to accomplish the same thing. Once the coolers were filled we headed close to shore to continue the slaying of black sea bass or black rock fish. These you can keep 12 per day and once you find the school they are relatively easy to catch. Long story short, we limited out all three days with all the permissible species taken. After everything was filleted I alone must have ended up with at least 60 pounds of fresh clean fish. Here are a few pictures of the trip, I also have some video that I need to edit and post but to be hones it was all taken with my cell and I don't really have any video experience so I'll try but can't promise anything. Enjoy.

last pictures

Quote from pantoja

man, that's some awesome fishing up there. when you get back here can you bring some of that fish to try it ?

Better yet, put some time aside and come up here around the same time next year and catch your very own. You can crash at my place.