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Good catch,but some hard work

By Capt. John Keizer

Tacoma Weekly
Published on: July 17, 2008

Just back from Neah Bay.

Family, friends, campfires, fireworks and tons of fishing, who can ask for a better vacation?

We spend the five days fishing south from Umatilla Reef located about half way between Neah Bay and La Push north to Barkley Sound in British Columbia (B.C.) We also fished inside the straits near Tatoosh Island and over on the B.C. side near Port Renfrew. Log lots of hours, pumped 150 gallons of gas in the North River and caught lots of fish.

Wish I could report the kings were really big and easy to come by but that was not the case this season. You had to work for them and they were at best scattered around the entire area we were fishing.

We had our best luck for numbers of Chinook just south of Umatilla Reef fishing in 300 feet of water just off the bottom. Most of the fish were 12-18 pounds and a Green Gold Star Ultraviolet hootchie caught most of them.

Inside the straits near Tatoosh Island and Mushroom Rock were better for larger fish. Fished the 80-90 foot water trolling about 70-75 feet. Coho Killers and needlefish hootchies work great here. These fish average 20-25 pounds.

There were plenty of halibut to be found up off Barkley Sound and all the near shore rocks had plenty of sea bass and lingcod to fish for.

We jigged halibut in the 300-350 foot water with 12-ounce butterfly jigs and tested the new Shimano Lucanus bottom fish jig system out on rockfish and lingcod with great success. Like the butterfly system, the Lucanus uses a specialty built Tescata rod to fish the jigs. It has a light tip to allow the fish time to pick up the jig and swim off with it but with a strong backbone to play a large fish. It worked quite well on all species of bottom fish and lingcod.

We took time to shoot a video on how to fish the Neah Bay area, look for it soon on the Fish Frontiers site.

All in all it was a great trip and time to relax with family and friends.

Read more from Capt. John Keizer at www.fishfrontiers.com

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