Sekiu Fishing for Blackmouth and Ling March 2021

We recently got back from a trip to Sekiu in the middle of March 2021 where we fished for blackmouth and bottom fish like lingcod, cabezon, and black rockfish (sea bass).

The entire trip was incredible from start to finish. If you have a few days to get away to Sekiu, it’s a must-visit fishing destination when the season is going. Let’s get to the trip details!

My friend and I were able to accommodate the flexibility you need in terms of going to Sekiu on a good weather window. We actually moved our trip back a day just to stay out of some snotty weather on the forecast.

We took our two teenage sons who are home-schooling full time, to give them a more well-rounded education and get in on some epic fishing action.

If digesting a video format of our trip is your thing, you should definitely take a look at the below video I recently posted on the PNW Best Life YouTube channel highlighting our trip.

While I’m fond of the above video, I will cover a few additional items in this blog post that weren’t covered there.

Planning a trip to Sekiu in terms of Weather, Swell and Current

One of the most important aspects of a successful fishing trip to Sekiu or anywhere is planning around weather, swells, and currents. It also may help you come home in one piece (always a big priority of mine).

While there’s a lot to consider here, I will try to keep it very simple as it relates to trip planning.

I don’t have a big boat. In fact, it’s a 20′ Alumaweld Stryker with a Jet pump, so planning around the weather is a big deal.

First, you should bookmark the Washington Marine Forecast site to look at the predicted swell hight and wind:

In the above forecast, I might not be fishing any of those days. Where it says “W swell 9 ft at 11 seconds” …that’s not gonna go well with my boat. I like the look of Friday potentially with W swell at 5 ft, but I want to know the wave duration as well. 5 ft at 5 seconds is snotty, but 5 at 10 seconds is almost flat calm.

I will also use the Windy app to give me an idea about the predicted timing of the wind speed fluctuations or direction changes. A wind from the south or west might not be too bumpy if you are staying near shore around Sekiu because of the land protection from the wind.

Often times you may get an east or north 10-20 mph wind that will kick up in the afternoon and I generally want to avoid being on the water for that, or at least be close to shelter if it ends up being worse than expected.

Lastly, when it comes to current, I like to be bottom fishing closer to the slack current period and blackmouth fishing when it is ripping. If you look at the tide change (high or low) for Clallam Bay, the slack current period maybe 2-3 hours after that fishing nearshore between Sekiu and Neah Bay.

Looking for more resources to be safe? Check out the video I did last year about going over the Westport Bar in a small boat and planning a trip to be safe. Many have used this to make a safe plan themselves and most of the concepts apply (outside of going over a river bar).

Just like with a river bar though, you may want to avoid the max ebb period around Tatoosh if you go out that far.

Let’s get to the fishing now!

Trolling for Blackmouth around Sekiu / Marine Area 5

We started out on both days trolling for blackmouth in three different spots around Sekiu / Clallam bay. While there’s been some great pics of limits of blackmouth on social media, from our own experience and talking to folks, it’s been much more of a grind for keeper blackmouth than the general impression.

I would estimate about 1 keeper for every 2-3 hours of “competent effort” on average. Competent, meaning you are on it and know what you’re doing. If you don’t know what you’re doing: Check out our complete page devoted to the topic of blackmouth fishing in the Puget Sound.

Also, for checkout this page for a complete guide to salmon fishing in Sekiu.

The main troll for most boats is above, ranging from the sea caves and Sekiu Point right after you leave the Marina to Kydaka Point in 90-150 ft of water. There are always a few fish hooked in shallower though near the sea caves as well.

Another place a few people were headed to after bailing on Sekiu->Kydaka point is the area from Slip Point to about 2 miles east. We trolled at the end of the ebb on day 1 towards Slip Point and hooked into a nice one that came unbuttoned after about 20 seconds.

Start on the east end of Clallam Bay just inside of Slip Point and troll west with the ebb towards Sekiu Point. We hooked and lost a nice keeper right at the boat on Day 2.

Lots of stuff works, small herring in a helmet, hoochies and spoons. These are actively feeding chinook. Fish close to 10 ft of the bottom for most blackmouth and more mid-water for returning springers (be ready to move the downrigger up or down quickly based on marking the fish in the water column on the electronics!).

Don’t fish super close to the bottom though as you may do in Puget Sound or you may be dragging around an 8-inch lingcod you will absolutely not detect until you bring your gear up.

The setup that got bit twice for us was the herring aide kingfisher spoon behind a Coyote blue crush flasher. This setup has been killer for me any month in the Strait.

We were fishing with our teenage sons who began to fall asleep after about 15 minutes of downrigger trolling, so we kind of looked at each other and it was like “Yeah, let’s go do the bottom fishing thing”.

Want more information about downrigger trolling for salmon? Check out our comprehensive page devoted to the topic.

Catching Bottomfish in Marine Area 4

You should take a look at my guide to lingcod fishing in Washington in addition to the information below.

Now unlike the grind of blackmouth trolling, this was literally nonstop crazy action on lings and rockfish. My son called it the best fishing trip he’s ever been on (and he’s been on some good ones!)

We found the first rock pile on our charts west of the Sekiu River (boundary line for MA4) and let the remaining ebb tide rip us along between 40 and 60 ft of water.

The ling dings (undersized lings) were everywhere, with a few really nice ones sprinkled in. I know there are quite a few nice lings in there as we were getting them last year into August just fine.

The black rockfish were schooled up as they usually are, which required holding in the current on top of them, which is certainly easier to do when there’s far less current pushing you around.

Because we bailed on the blackmouth fishing long before we ran out of ripping ebb, we did most of our fishing in a bit of current. As it turned out though, drifting was a very effective technique for finding good-sized lings. I’ve got an entire page devoted to fishing for lingcod here, go check it out.

One of my favorite offerings for both black rockfish and lings are these new penny 6″ grubs. They are nearly impossible to find on shelves right now. I decided to purchase online instead and I just received a shipment of them from Amazon.

We were going to go out to Tatoosh to try and complete our black rockfish limit, but the east wind of 10-15 mph meeting 6 ft swell on the flood was not conducive.

And then this happened! Absolutely incredible to hook and fight this halibut which taped out at 40 lbs on a salmon twitching rod and 20 lb line.

We hooked it in 45 ft of water too! Halibut can get a bad rep as not good fighters, but that’s often cause people are pulling up 20 lb ers in 300+ ft of water.

This was an awesome fight, and all captured in the first video at the top of the page.