Northwest Fishing Reports

I fish for steelhead at Fort Casey and Bush Point. I cast a banana weight w/ a spin n'glo and hoochie.Does anyone here fish these area for salmon? Or is it mainly a steelie thing to do?

Not sure but I think Steelhead tend to follow closer to the bank, Silvers more offshore.

I have caught many pinks, coho and a few chinook off the beach at Bush Point, PNP, Deception Pass and at Fort Casey. Buzz Bombs, Point Wilson Darts and other heavy Jigging spoons will do the job. Take some Tylenol before hand, it works out to about 120 casts per fish and you'll be sore. I have had better luck off the beach at PNP.

Rac, I fish the island a lot. Usually 3 to 4 days a week (or more) during salmon season. Bush, Lagoon, Casey, Ebey, Deception Pass, and Ala Spit all have their moments. Silvers have been scarce this year but are running a couple of pounds larger than in a normal year. For silvers I prefer to fish herring under a float. Buzz bombs, rotators, crocodiles, and kastmasters all have put fish on the beach for me. Yesterday I went 1 for 3 with a very nice 12 pound buck silver for my efforts. Tomorrow I'll be at one beach until low slack and then fish another on the incoming. Same for this coming Friday. Next week I'll put my kayak in at Bush and fish towards Lagoon (weather permitting of course).
Last year I caught 380 pinks and 84 silvers. Most from the beach, nearly all fishing the island. This year its been a lot tougher as my tally is only 23 silvers (so far). Being retired, with no war department at home lets me go fishing a lot.

Wolverine, When you fish herring under a float how do you rig the herring? and how long do you let the fish chew on the herring?

i grew up bobber fishing off the local piers in the sound for salmon and i always cut plug the herring an hooked it onto the salmon leader the same way as when mooching or trolling, as a rule. that said strips of belly meat outta a bigger herring work really well on silvers. i've even had some luck with sandshrip out a dash point in the shallower water

Crank,

I use about a dozen different herring riggings. Depends on size of bait, quality of bait, plug cut or whole, how much current speed, how far out I need to cast, and most important. What speed of spin do the fish want.
Every bite is is different. Some fish absolutely hammer the bait and hook themselves. Some wiggle/ pop the float and slowly pull it down and move off with it. Some just pull the float sideways and then let the bait go (hopefully they come back after it again). my favorite is just a bobber down and a rod lift and a hook up. This year there have been far fewer fish around so the fish tend to play around more with the bait and not take it solidly as there's not a lot of competition for the bait. Sometimes you can tease the fish back by pulling the float back a couple of feet. In soft flows they tend to fool around with the herring a lot more than they do in heavier flows. I've changed hook size, hook placement, strike immediately, wait- wait - wait, etc. But I've still had a lot more swing and a miss this year than I normally do.

Wolverine, you seem to have it down for sure. I am moving out to Whidbey in a month or two and looking forward to fishing the beaches there.


thanks for the tips and advice.

Bush seems more shallow then Casey.Rseas I know what you mean about casting alot. It really gets my middle back.I stop and rest a bit.I have lots of crocs.Crocs are one of my favorite spoons in fresh or salt water.

Racfish, just be careful exactly where you stand. I can tell you that the shore fishing is AWESOME... right out across the the fort casey soccer fields. I found this out by mistake this summer. Best salt water shore fishing I'd ever seen. Really thought that I'd read things carefully. Turns out that I was fishing in one small area that is an underwater marine preserve. OOPS.

I've seen that before. I used to have a lil house to use on Brighton Beach Rd. My biggest scare was this quicksand area going towards Langley from Clinton.I was with a friend walking and I sunk to my waist. It was a very scarey feeling.I'm not sure why it was that way but wow..All this is good info. I will check my regs.

Now across from Casey is Keystone and or Pt Townsend.There is a newer pier there for fishing. Do any of you know it or tried fishing there?. It seems to be pretty deep.I do work in Townsend . Thats why I've been asking. After next week I'll be up there once a week for awhile.

Plenty of silvers/pinks from the beaches @ Bush/Lagoon. Not exactly been a great year, but those are two great beaches to intercept salmon and steelhead.

Thanks all for the great info.

As a kid, both with Boy Scouts and during family outings and/or camping trips I had the opportunity to fish Deception Pass quite often. We were more or less poor (hmmm…I am not sure that has changed much) so our gear selection was usually scrounged from somewhere. I used to tie a mooching leader to the bottom of a Styrofoam bonito float and fish near the big rock at the east end of North Beach more or less right by the bridge headland. I would typically fish a strip bait, but would fish cut-plugs if I had more than a few herring (often jigged from the same location using a smelt jig). I would walk the area until I found an eddy that would carry my offering away from the beach and then just let it swirl around in the current until it went bobber down. It was a very effective fishery. You could catch and more often than not did catch all species of pacific salmon from that beach.