Posts Tagged ‘South Sound’
WDFW gave us a little Christmas gift and opened crabbing in area 11. It will remain open until the end of December. In the last couple weeks we have caught good numbers of fat, hard shelled dungeness. The bodies on these winter crab are are jammed full of meat where in the summer a lot of them are soft and in the molting process. 
This is a good time to use those Tuna scraps you have left over from the summer. If you don’t have that Turkey legs, Salmon carcasses or heads will work and in a pinch you could even use good old Puss in Boots cat food.
Oh and Sportco has a great deal on crab pots at $15 for a nice box whith an opening top. Crabbing in Quartermaster Harbor has been a great time for the kids and I. We’ve even gotten some of our friends in on the fun.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
I don’t know if others experience this but I seem to have a lot of smarty pants type people around me. I was supposed to go crabbing with my friend YT (pronounced whitee) on Sunday but I worked a little overtime so I didn’t get the boat back in the water. We were going to drop some pots at Quartermaster Harbor and troll around for a couple hours get some fat winter crab and go home.
Today is monday and I see YT and he says “we only got three crab” in that “ask me what else happened” kinda voice. So I say “but they were big fat nice ones, yes?”. He couldn’t hold it any more and told me he caught a nice 23lb Blackmouth while soaking the pots. Needless to say it didn’t take much prompting to get the rest of the story. 
He was fishing on the west side of Point Dalco, in about 100 feet of water. he was running a hot spot on the downrigger ball, with about a 4 foot leader, and a coyote spoon about three feet behind that off the release. I will try to post a pic of this rig in the future.
Good Job YT
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
this is a link to a story that impressed me about cold water rescue. Though the temperature of the water in the sound doesn’t change that much from season to season in the winter there is a greater likelihood, if you go in, you will be in for quite a while as there are fewer people fishing.
I will be printing this out, laminating it and keeping it on the boat.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
It’s the end of October and that means some great fall fishing is coming to a close and with it goes the retention of wild kings and the ability to keep two Chinook. The good news is blackmouth season is upon us. My personal favorite Puget Sound fishery is blackmouth, or local kings, so I get very excited about this time of year. We are back to releasing wild Chinook (adipose fin in tact) and only keeping one Chinook but there are still some chum around and local coho to fill the two fish limit. And we will have winter crabbing in area 11 this year starting November 21st seven days a week til December 31st.
There is nothing like a crisp clear winter day, where the sun is out and the water is perfectly flat. There is very little competition for these fish so I am usually the only boat out, or one of just a couple. If I’m lucky I can get my buddy James or one of the other hard cores to go. We fish Blackmouth mostly at the tide changes, and hour before to an hour after. I’ll fish the Girl Scout Camp or Point Richmond on the in and Point Defiance on the out. Or Gig Harbor on either tide. There is a hump just north of the harbor that holds fish on the leeward side.
I troll between 2.5 and 3 MPH but will go slower if I’m running fat plugs like the Tomic Tubby’s. I usually run spoons or hoochies in green. I also have a couple Tomic Plugs one white and one green that work really well for Blackmouth. For instructions on rigging these check out my youtube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe. And you want to run this right on the bottom. usually if you run your downrigger ball the same depth as the water, or even a little deeper for the angle, you will usually be close enough. These fish are sitting on the bottom and feeding up.
Don’t forget to wear a life jacket when fishing in the winter and let someone know where your going and when you’ll be back. Unlike the summer, there aren’t a lot of other people around so a small mistake could be disastrous. Good Luck
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
I was out yesterday and caught a small humpy. The trick with humpies is to bleed them right away and put them on ice. Unfortunately I didn’t have any ice so I cycled the water in my cooler a couple times and kept him alive till I could clean him at the dock.
I filleted him, put him on ice and BBQed him tonight with some pineapple pepper sauce we got at Costco. It was great!!!
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Guys are catching Kings right now in all the usual spots. Now is the time we wait all year for so get out there and get some!!!
This one was Jessica’s first salmon and was good for 19th place in the Gig Harbor PSA derby last Saturday. The winner was a 25.42 pound hog caught near Nisqually by Russel Stone.
I was out tonight and there were several fish caught, including one that I broke off for my other daughter Kristina. Sorry Babe.
Anyway this is a great time to go fishing so get out there in anything that will float and get some!!!!!
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
I was out a week or so ago and my kicker started pumping oil out the top of the block. I’m no mechanic but I’m sure that aint good. The old Honda has had a hard life and it was time for her to go.
A beautiful day in Gig Harbor
Saturday I took out a couple guys from fort Lewis, which was cool, and we tried trolling with the big motor. At dead idle the boat trolls about 3.2 mph in this configuration so I didn’t expect much but we had 4 shakers and two nice take downs that we couldn’t button up. It was a gorgeous day and everyone had a great time.
What you do if your kicker dies
This morning I went out and
tried dragging a bucket to try to slow the boat down a bit.
I have told a lot of people to try this but have never done it myself. It worked pretty well and slowed the boat down to about 2.8 to 3 mph. I did not catch any shakers this morning but I got royally slimmed by some nasty jellies.
Do you Know this guy?
After a couple hours my attention started to drift. I took some pictures of other people catching fish, and some bad eagle pics, for the blog. Later, I was in the cabin driving and about half asleep, the cool part about trolling whith the big motor is the heater works so my feet were warm at least, when suddenly ZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!!!!. I look out the window and the rod is dancing like crazy. I run out to grab the rod and remember that I can’t slow the boat from there so I go back in to put the boat in neutral but I pull too hard and kick it into reverse. crap!! I reach back up get the boat into neutral and go back out to play my fish (I was honestly surprised it was still there). I start reeling and the fish starts swimming at me. I have to reel fast to keep up but thanks to these new reels I had made I am able to. These reels have a 4:1 retrieve, 4 ball bearings and are very smooth with strong drags.
Wild Chinook. Released
Unfortunately when I got this guy in the net I realized it had an adipose fin so I would have to let it go. I took a couple pictures, careful not to remove the fish from the water and let it out of my net. At first it just lay there and I was beginning to get concerned but when I reached to grab it by the tail and try to revive it it gave a quick shake and was gone.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
As I was fishing yesterday morning with my buddy Jeff We snagged this dude. It’s an eight and a half inch herring. The herring in the south sound tend to be a little smaller than in the north sound or the ocean so smaller spoons, hoochies and plugs usually work better here. Kingfisher and Apex spoons in the 3.5 inch or 4 inch Tomic plugs are my favorites. I also like needlefish hoochies. They give a smaller presentation to more closely match what the salmon are eating.
So at the end of our day we snag this huge herring. Can you guess what I’ll be trying on Thursday when I go out next?
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Yes boys and girls the fourth of july is past and now it is just a couple weeks till Kings come rolling in to the south sound. There have already been a couple small groups of kings come through with few fish but good size. Guys are picking a few by the Girl Scout Camp and the Slag Pile. I will be going out tomorrow to try Point Richmond and maybe the Girl Scout Camp. I will be starting this year with what worked last year. 3.5 inch kingfishers in cookies and cream and green uv. 36 inches behind green hotspots. I also have a couple ace hi flies I am looking forward to trying this year. As you may know the Gig Harbor PSA derby winner came on an ace hi last year by the Girl Scout Camp.
Here is the video on how to tie spoons:
I look forward to seeing you all on the water.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Those that know me will not be surprised that I love to run plugs. I have in my arsenal several different colors but I have two favorites. One is, the old standby, Tomic 140, white with a pink head, everybody should have a couple of these. The other is a two tone green, dark on top light on the bottom. This story is about the second.
In May, 2004 I did a trip up the west side of Vancouver Island with some guys. On the way up we stopped in couple places one of which was Ucluelet. In Ucluelet there 
was a little tackle shop on the water. This place was great. Like all old tackle shops they had a lots of things that work for salmon but all the really good stuff was in the front by the counter. As used to be the case in many coastal shops there was a bucket with old plugs the commercial long line guys had used and discarded for a buck a piece or 5 for $4. These buckets can be a lot of fun to go through. The trick is to find the ones with teeth marks in them, those are the ones that really work. So I picked out a few that looked good including this goofy two toned green thing.
In June of that year I tied up the green one and a couple others. Here is a short video I did on how to rig these plugs.
Up to this point I had had very little success catching June fish in the Gig Harbor area (White River Kings). The first time I ran this green plug it caught a nice 14lb Chinook. This plug has continued to be a consistent producer for me (especially in June). I had to call Tomic to get more made because I couldn’t find them in stores here. They advised me that this was not a color they did for the general public. It was a custom color they did for a long liner in Canada but they would make some for me. So I ordered a dozen. A couple years ago I ordered another dozen after the company changed. The colors are not an exact match but it still works well.
The moral of the story is “when you find something that works use it!!!”.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Gig Harbor Fly Shop
Gig Harbor.com