Northwest Fishing Reports

Anyone been out in area 11 lately? I know the rivers are on fire right now, but the folks are coming up this weekend and they want to be 'on a boat'. They've never fished the Sound (and MA11 is the only area I somewhat know), so I really want to put them on some fish at sunrise.

I have a horrible record with my downriggers so far, but it's not because I haven't been putting the time in (I'm not sure if I ever saw my wife in August.. wink: ). There has to be something I'm not doing right (speed/depth/leader length/color/lure/time/tide)...I've been trying everything I can to improve my skills, it's starting to get frustrating!

Any tips, tricks and spots to help a guy treat his folks to a great trip would be appreciated!

We fished Gig Harbor about a week and a half ago and we got skunked. It was the second time I've been skunked out there for kings during these months without getting a keeper ever. My dad and two of his friends are going to fish over by Dash Point and that area on Thursday in the boat, I'll respond back with how it goes. Speed you want to keep it around 1.5-2.0 for kings and a little faster for coho. Use cut-plug herrings, hoochies, b2 squids, spoons tipped with a herring strip. Try smearing on some herring flavored smelly jelly on the dodger and bait too if you have any. Try fishing the high tides an hour before and after the tide or just try fishing at the beginning of the day at sunrise like you said. At the beginning of the morning try fishing 45-60 feet then move down farther as the day goes on. Do you know where in MA11 you're going to be fishing at?

I was thinking off of Dalco pt, or going to the mouth of the Puyallup maybe

Well the dad just came back and said they had one that was about a 9-10lbs wild king so they had to release it and they caught a bunch of shakers. They were fishing over by browns point for the most part.

I fished the tide rips off the slag pile this morning with about a dozen other boats. I didn't catch any fish and I didn't see any fish caught. I later moved up to Redondo for a couple of hours and didn't get any fish there either.

Any pinks jumping off the points? The folks would be happy catching those as well...

My dad said when they fished yesterday that they saw schools of pinks when they were fishing by Browns Point. His friend and him are back out there right now and I just called him a hour or so ago and said they had 1 coho in the boat about 7lbs and had 2 other on, said one of the fish they lost was a bigger fish.