I’ve been spending way too much idle time glancing at Facebook posts of all the salmon being caught out in Sekiu. Ahhh! It’s killing me to not be back out there. We had an epic time though on the opener and it sounds like it has been absolutely packed with people since then. This report is about what’s going on closer to home though, so let’s dig in!
I will break this down based on what I was doing each day and sum it up with what I’ve heard via my fishing network, to spin it forward as they say, as a look ahead to the future.
Sunday, July 12th – Fishing and Crabbing MA11 / MA10
I had some friends joining me to fish that day who hadn’t been fishing in years. We decided to hit the MA10 crab opener while also giving it a shot at some chinook and coho between MA11 and MA10. Below are a few maps of where we got Dungees vs Red Rocks crabbing that day.
This first map shows where we dropped pots around Blake. We picked up some huge red rocks on the east side of Blake, talking like 7″ across. We also picked up a legal Dungeness in 70 ft of water north of Blake.
We struck out on Dolphin Pt fishing for kings in MA11, just south of the ferry docks. We gave it a couple of passes, then picked up our pots and headed north.
We dropped our pots again between Kingston and Presidents Point. We pulled up mostly red rocks, but in the deeper water, we pulled up dungees. 100 ft plus depth. Looking for more crab tips? Check out our earlier post on the 2020 crabbing seasons.
We trolled around for resident coho, but I think from the intel I gathered later, there was an early morning bite and then it was dead most of the day. We didn’t get up there until mid-morning, so for us, it didn’t produce much.
My friend’s daughter got to catch and release a small king off of Bainbridge Island that bit on a green spatter back ace high fly though. She was all smiles and had bragging rights on her dad the rest of the day as he only pulled up shakers.
Great trip with great people!
Monday, July 13th – Fishing and Crabbing MA11
Another buddy that I normally river fish with decided to jump on the boat with me and show me his MA11 crabbing spot.
Quite a few nice crab in that pot, and even a few legal dungees.
We struck out on salmon trolling around Point Defiance, and the Girl Scout camp, but then I’m pretty sure everyone else did as well based on the creel reports and the fact we never saw a net fly.
Point Defiance has a few good days with lots of pics that hit social media and then 100+ boats show up for a nice boat ride. Typical drill. It will get better!
Tuesday, July 14th – Fishing MA11 / MA13
If you are following this blog, you know the above picture is of my good friend and fishing partner Ash holding a 24″ (nice straight arm technique!) chunky king we caught in MA13. We did the Point Defiance drill, both jigging, and trolling for a bit, but as the tide switched around to the flood we motored down to Point Evans.
Point Evans had some really nice marks, but no takers. We switched things up to a larger herring aide spoon though and started to get bit by some undersized fish.
After a few passes, we headed down to Fosdick and that’s where we hit that fish in the above pic on the 3.5 herring aide spoon.
I expect the fishing to pick up dramatically next week in MA11 and MA13 as historically, July 20 something is when it gets going!
Wednesday, July 15th – Shrimping Hood Canal / MA12
July 15th brought us another awesome Hood Canal shrimp opener. These are so much fun and if you have things dialed in, they also provide easy limits.
Our first 3 pots yielded: 89, 91, and 120+ shrimp. Nice!
We are almost to our goal of putting 1000 shrimp in the freezer this summer.
By the way, if you are looking for good freezer containers for these spot shrimp, we bought the above on Amazon and we are quite happy with them. We started out using random containers, or some cheap dollar store containers, but they do not hold up very well. Here’s the link to purchase.
The next and last shrimp opener is July 28th. We plan to hit this one as well. You cannot have too much Spot Shrimp! If you are looking for tips/techniques, take a look at our page devoted to Puget Sound Spot Shrimp.
Thursday, July 16th – Crabbing Hood Canal / MA12
We were camping at Scenic Beach State Park, so we could crab the next day around Seabeck. We pulled up quite a few nice dungees and whatever we wanted to keep in terms of red rocks. We also encountered some folks on the water who were struggling a bit. Again, if you aren’t finding dungies shallow, drop in 80+ ft of water. We did well from 100-140 ft again.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Marine Area 9 and 10 Chinook opener. Things got off to a pretty slow start, but the Creel reports tell the story. The bulk of the run is in the central straight right now.
Sekiu has cooled off a bit but will continue to provide strong fishing until it closes (which may be next week!). There are lots of fish out in the ocean still.
Port Angeles / MA6 has really picked up this week.
The best reports on the opener came from MA9 / Admiralty Inlet.
Friday, July 17th – Day off folks…needed some recovery time!
The picture is starting to get clearer. Point no Point is starting to produce kings, as is Possession. The kings are starting to show up. I expect to see quite a few pics this weekend as things get rocking!
Summary and my plan next week
I’m going to start fishing MA10 pretty hard and maybe sneak up into MA9 if I get the chance. Later in the week, I will probably revisit MA11 and MA13 to see how things are in the South Sound.
I’ve got some plans to fish with some awesome folks, so hopefully I have lots to share. You can see my most up-to-date reports/info by liking our Facebook page.
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Good luck and tight lines!