area 4&5: Steelheader.net- Steelhead, Salmon and trout fishing

Well we had a pretty nice weekend up in area 4 and 5. I went up to my dads house in Joyce and fished out of Olson’s on Saturday and today. We got kind of a late start on both of the days figuring that it would be good right around low slack and the slow flood tide, which was around 10:30. We got on the water around 7:30 on both days. Yesterday we went right to area 4 because it was nice and flat it sounded like a good idea and it was.

We fished it pretty hard for some slow action but we still got some nice fish. There weren’t any lings in numbers but I got this one which was 12# and snapped another off. But what we did find is some nice Cabazon’s. We normally don’t get any when we fish for bottom fish but I got this 10# and Jason got a nice blue meat one to boot. We also got one nice sea bass. Other then that we released some nice copper’s and quills, and I also got one nice Canary that was about 2 pounds that was released. So over all it was a good day on the water with some very nice conditions and some nice fish to boot.

fish tacos and fish and chips

The second day we stayed in area 5 and hit some of our normal spots that produced great fish last year and couldn’t find any lings. My guess is they are not in to spawn in the shallow water yet. But we did find some more caps, the bigger one was 8.6# today and the sea bass was 3.9#. Over all another good day on the water. There were about 6-10 boats each day and only 2 lings the first day and I think about 3-4 today, but I’m not sure about today because there was no WDFW fish counter today.

this is after it was almost out
One side note was we were out in area 4 and we saw some huge plumes of smoke coming off of a boat that was about 10 miles away. At first we thought it was just another dirty freighter, but then the smoke got thick and black and it was most definitely a fire. We got the glasses out and saw that a boat had made it there to help and shortly after the CG chopper showed. It seemed to die out and we went in to clean our fish. While cleaning the fish a whale watching boat from BC came in and had a huge drum that the chopper dropped, that was to put out a fire that never got put out. I helped them tie off and talked to the Capt. that said they ran(18ft hurricane with twin 225s) there when they saw it and helped the single man off of his 37ft Starcraft who had not gotten off of his ship. He said it was fully engulfed and the man was not in good shape, he had a lot of smoke in his lungs. He was telling me that the CG dropped in a diver with an oxygen package to get some oxy on him and then made the decision to basket him off of their boat and take him by air. Said it was crazy to have a chopper 25ft over his boat pushing that much water but they got him off and he brought the drum back to get picked up and he was on fumes after all of this so he picked up some fuel and off he went. It must have been a pretty crazy experience for him and his four clients from Holland. I hope the guy made it; they said it didn’t look good. I think that I would like to thank Jeff again for helping save that guy.