Fishing is good. I haven't seen any reason to leave. There are some nice fish up here. We got two at 11.5 pounds (Tuesday). |
Fishing on Sunday was great, and Saturday it was tough in the Double Bluff area [on south west side of Whidbey Island]. The racetrack (between Hat Island and Camano Head) and Saratoga Passage has definitely tapered off from two weeks ago. |
I fished Saturday and it was very good on the racetrack between Camano Head and Hat Island. |
I got out Sunday and [Wednesday] morning for a couple hours, and we found black mouth every time in Saratoga Passage. |
I know a person who made three trips this past week in Saratoga Passage, and got five hatchery-marked fish on every trip. |
I wouldn't say it's a slam-dunk, but we've found fish everywhere we've fished. We fished Possession Bar on Sunday morning and didn't get a legal fish, so we went over to Double Bluff and did OK. But I heard Possession did come on at the same time, on the low tide. |
I've been helping fisheries keep track of the mark rate, and it has been very good. We've had a mark rate of 60 to 65 percent since it opened, and that accounts for every single fish that we've either kept or released. |
It's tough. For over a week it's been very tough fishing. I don't know what the story will be ultimately, but it needs to turn. I'm hoping they're going to be late. |
The winds were pretty strong to fish Possession Bar, but you could have fished at places like Point No Point. |
There were 15 [boats] on Monday from Saratoga Passage to the racetrack [between Hat Island and Camano Head], and pretty much everyone got fish. |
We averaged one or two fish on each trip this past week, and we fished Columbia Beach and Possession Bar. Some bait finally showed off Possession. |
We had a fair weekend in the Useless Bay/Double Bluff area. There was a lot of traffic up there. Everyone was obviously having trouble where they had been fishing. Saturday was good. Saturday was scratch fishing. |