Posts Tagged ‘Fishing’
Our original plan was to be Tuna fishing the entire month of August out of Westport. This was killing me because I know this is the best time of year to fish Salmon in Gig Harbor (my home base). I have often said that August is the reward God gives us for making it through the rest of the year here. I have so many friends and supporters in this area that I just had to make it happen.
So, We have decided to take two weeks in August and run as many trips as we can. From August 5th through the 15th Offshore Northwest Charters and Gig Harbor fishing will be one and the same with daily Salmon Charters twice daily from 6:00am to noon and from 4:00pm till dark. I expect these to fill up fast so check out Offshore Northwest and get hold of me as soon as possible.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
I have been fishing salmon all my life. I have been fishing Puget Sound Blackmouth for about 20 years. I know a little about how to fish but one of the most important lessons I have learned during this time is how to take information from several sources to create a style of fishing that I can use. This is one of the themes I have tried to apply to this site and everything I write whether it be on-line or in print. My goal is not to teach people how to fish but to share information so that my readers can create their own technique.
To that end when I find something on-line or in print that can add to the conversation I like to share it here. This is an incredible collection of videos by my friend Mike Jamboretz of Jambo’s Sport Fishing explaining in great detail how he fishes Blackmouth in Puget Sound. These videos were created by Mike and Doug Saint-Denis of Ridge to River Outdoors. There are four videos in all. Try to watch them in order. I did but I have been back through them several times as they are packed with information.
Enjoy!!
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
While many of you have been enjoying some great Salmon fishing in the South Sound I have been trying to concentrate on my Tuna education and getting offshore Tuna fishing as dialed in as I can.
I have also had some other issues that have made writing difficult in the last few weeks but these things are just about all worked out so we will have more articles coming soon.
Right now everyone should be out with coho killer and coyote spoons fishing the rips for coho. this is a great year and people are really killing them. There are also still some kings around. I hope to get out in the next week or so to try to catch some of these feisty fish.
Tuna fishing offshore has been great and we really seem to be getting good at it. I went out at the beginning of the season with my friend Hawaiian Tom and he taught me a lot about organization and preparation. The big difference in my opinion is that Tuna fishing is a team sport while salmon fishing is more about individual accomplishment. Salmon fishing is often about catching the biggest fish. When your catching 30 fish for 4 or 5 guys all that stuff has to go out the window. The most important thing in tuna fishing is to keep the feed going, whatever that takes.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Yes boys and girls it’s that time of year again. The time when everyone with anything that can float gets out there and catches a few king salmon as they come by on their way to the river. Some guys will catch these in 60 or 8- feet of water and with anything from a 4 oz. banana weight and a herring to downriggers and hoochies.
I like to fish these in about 90 to 100 feet of water. There is a run that comes through at 75 feet and another around 90. My favorite is to run a green sonic edge spoon 56 inches behind a green hotspot flasher, 100 feet on the downrigger in 90 feet of water. I also go a little faster than some at 2.5 to 3 mph through the water. Recently the cookies and cream kingfisher spoon has worked very well for all these fish. I like to run this 35 inches behind a green flasher. These are especially deadly in the morning.
Plea for help:
If anything I have shared here has helped you, or entertained you, in some small way please consider donating a couple dollars to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Everyone knows someone with diabetes. If you don’t your kids certainly do. Donating is easier than catching local kings. you just click on the link and enter your info. you can even give anonymously if you want.
Thanks you and Good Fishin’ To Ya’
Capt. Kerry
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Well it’s been a long cold winter but spring has sprung and it’s time to get ready for LaPush Halibut.
I took a trip up recently to fish lings and rockfish just to get back out on the big ocean. It was a great day. Got our lings and a couple seabass, had great ocean conditions and even saw some transient Orca whales. I am including the video link, even though it is crappy, because these big guys were running and you don’t see that all the time.
I spent the winter upgrading the boat, pics to follow, and taking classes for my OUPV (captain) license. Exams were successful and I am now officially Captain Kerry W Allen. I am a Navy veteran, I have worked for the federal government for 25 years and I finally have a marketable skill. The jury is still out as to whether I will start chartering this year or next. Oh, and no I can’t marry people.
The new regs are out. Area 11 will be closed for Salmon during May but Lings will be open May 1st through June 15th. 26 to 36 inches.
We are planning several Ocean trips this year for Halibut, Tuna and maybe even a Salmon trip or two out of Westport. I will start sending the newsletter again soon to keep everyone up to date on what’s Happening.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
WDFW sent me a note today with this years Halibut Openers. For LaPush, where I usually fish, it will be just as we suspected. May 10, 12, 17 and 19th these are Thursday, Saturday. If there is quota left there will be an open on May 31 or June 2. If there is still Quota left after that there will be periodic openers Thursdays and/or Saturdays till the quota is filled.
For the rest of the coastal Marine areas and the Puget Sound you can check the press release here.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
We have been working on the boat getting it ready for Spring Halibut, Summer Salmon and Fall Tuna. We are adding 10 rocket launchers, Upgrading the electronics to add a Garmin 740S which will replace the old Furuno ls4000 fish finder and an old Garmin 210 GPS, replacing the plugs on my Scotty Downriggers, patching some holes and cleaning out a bunch of old wires. We are also adding a b60 tilted element thru hull transducer, it is scary drilling a 2 3/8 hole in the bottom of the boat.
While I was down yesterday laying out some stuff and cleaning out my wiring area my friend Ringo (Bob) was down to help me. Ringo is an old gill netter from back in the day and we were swapping stories, I was mostly listening. When I finally poked my head out of the cabin I saw what Ringo had been working on. He made this beautiful series of knots on my starboard grab rail and started on the port one as well. 
These are beautiful but I told him when people ask me at the dock if I did that myself I was going to have to tell them I did. He just laughed. I also learned that he had never been halibut fishing off the coast here. So Ringo has promised to do more of his magic to my boat and I am going to make it a priority to get Ringo Halibut fishing this year. It’s a win win. I get more cool stuff for the boat, and I get to go fishing with Ringo. It kicks ass being me.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
My original plan was to go to the Sportsmans Show in Puyallup on Saturday but on Thursday I couldn’t take it any more. I’ve been talking to guys about reels, shopping for parts for the boat, working on the trailer and studying everything I could on electronics.
I need to get back out on the water so bad I can taste it.
So I left work early, called a buddy of mine and off we went to the show.
We stopped to look at the chainsaw carvings on the way in. This guy does some great work. We watched some dock dog practice and got some info for the wife for next year. Patti plans to enter Grace in the competition next year.
We finally entered from the boat side and worked our way through. There were the Defiance boats first then some bass boats and drift boats. Outside the tent area we found the River Hawk Boats. These are the big Aluminum boats you see at Cabelas. These are good boats made in Medford, Oregon.
Next we checked out the camp cooking tent. It smelled yummy but since we were so early there was nothing going on yet.
We entered the main hall and walked through the myriad of outfitters, guides and lodges. Spoke to a few. Spent a little extra time at the Women in Waders booth.
We came to the Wooldridge section and could see the big offshore they had there. Next to that was the something I had till now thought was impossible. The new Wooldridge 20′ Sport Pilot House. Not a typo, a 20′ Pilot house boat. I include a link to the video but this little rig ROCKS!!!
This is a great boat for the Pacific Northwest. Whether winter blackmouth fishing or offshore for halibut this is a great boat for two or three fishermen and with a 75 gallon fuel capacity it has the range to run for tuna with the big rigs. This little rig has everything right where it needs to be from locking rod storage to and enclosed head. They even hid a sink under one of the seats. All this at a weight of 2540 lbs. means you can tow it behind just about anything and launch and retrieve it by yourself, which happens more often than you might think.
After that we went buy to see what was happening at the Stealhead pond and watched Tom Nelson catch and release a couple stealhead. Walked by the archery area as some kids were learning to shoot. and back out into the maelstrom.
We went by some RivTech drift boats and picked up some “Wiked Lures”. I’ll let you know how the Wiked Lures work out but they look killer for Blackmouth. Stopped at the XRodz booth and chatted up Jim Mercier. He had some great deals on some beautiful rods. Not only do these rods not suck, each one is a work of art.
And lastly we went by the Sportco booth to see what was happening there. 
They had some great deals on gear including this one on Lamiglass Rods.
I learned some new things about Lamiglass production that we will be discussing later. Overall it was a good show. I spent too much money but enjoyed some great people, made some new friends and learned a few things.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
My plan was to take the kids out of school early Friday to go to the coast and dig razor clams. Unfortunately with all the nasty weather we decided to bag it and hope for the next opener. The good news is, since the weather kept a lot of people away we should get some good opens later this winter.
I also got some great snow pictures of the harbor this weekend. These can be seen on the Facebook.
I am looking forward to the Boat Show starting this weekend. especially looking forward to seeing the new Defiance San Juan 25. It’s a beautiful boat. When you go by tell them you saw it on gigharborfishing.com
I will be live tweeting from the show so if your not following on twitter do it before Friday. I don’t follow twitter all the time but it’s good for stuff like this.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Readers meet Mike…Mike meet the readers. OK, now that the introductions are done let me tell you about my buddy mike.
Mike came Tuna fishing with me this year. The first time we communicated about that he told me he could bring whatever gear I needed to fill the gaps in what I had. It is common that people want to bring their own gear so I told him what I tell everyone and that is you can bring if you want but we probably will just use what I have, But what do you have?
Mike responded with a list of top of the line gear for everything from trolling to live bait to “casting iron”. Needless to say I decided that we would use his and ended up leaving my stuff at home.
Mike is a gear guy. Mike has forgotten more about rods, reels and other gear than I have ever learned, which makes him a good guy to have around. In the day I had him on the boat and since he has taught me tons.
I was down at the Lamiglass factory outlet store with Mike last weekend. He was going to buy a pile of gear (pictured) and I went along to see the place and do research for the blog, post to follow. It was great to watch someone that knows so much pick through a place with such precision.
So I’ve asked Mike to write some gear stuff for the blog. You can look forward to some very detailed information coming soon.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Gig Harbor Fly Shop
Gig Harbor.com