08/20/2009

Tides: Low tide is at 7:30 a.m. and high tide is at 2:00 and a second low tide at 7:30 p.m.

Crew for the day: Tim, Paul, Peter and Bonnie.

Starting Time: 9:00 a.m.

What We Caught

A little better day today, we boated 3 hatchery Coho, released 4 wild Coho and lost another 6 fish. A few other boats seemed to be doing much better than us but the majority of the boats seemed to be doing poorly.

Where We Fished

We started the day setting up on buoy #27 along the red line for our first pass. Pretty much nothing so we setup on the green line for our second pass. Got a wild Coho to the boat right off the bat. We lost another fish but were not seeing much activity on the other boats so we decided to give buoy #10 another shot. Setup just behind the mass of boats around 10:30 and by 10:45 we had 2 hatchery fish in the box. Released a couple more wild fish over the next hour and lost a few more. Around 1:00 we dropped back down to buoy #27 and ran the red line again. Lost the first fish, released a wild one and finally around 3:00, we boated a really nice Coho.

How We Fished

We fished 3 rods, 1-10 1/2ft, 1-8ft and 1-7ft using the small fresh herring on 2 poles and larger blue label packaged herring on the shortest pole. That one got the biggest fish but the fewest bites. At buoy #10 we were fishing 18 to 22 pulls and 18 to 26 everywhere else.

What We Saw and Learned

We had more bites on the smaller baits and a bit better retention ratio but the fish were smaller. The larger baits defiantly had fewer hookups after tripping the divers but in general got nicer fish.

I ran into some folks at the dock while we took a short break at noon and they had come in from the ocean with their limits after 2 hours out in 350ft of water. He said the bar was in nice shape but the ocean was pretty bumpy making most of his crew barf. I am do not know how to predict bar and ocean conditions and the coast guard will not provide forecast on previous days, probably because of liability issues. You can get current bar conditions on channel 22 of your marine radio.

Later on when we went in to gas up the boat, I ran into a guide at the gas station that asked if I had been out over the bar. I told him I was a bit nervous about taking my boat over the bar and I could not get any forecast on ocean conditions from anyone. He told me that my boat could easily handle reasonable ocean conditions and that tomorrow will be the best opportunity for me. He said by Saturday things will get pretty crappy out there. Bottom line, we may head out over the bar tomorrow. I hope this guy knows what he is talking about.