JD and I headed out to Neah Bay at 2 AM Sunday morning. We arrived at Neah Bay at 6 AM. Fortunately, JD did all the driving so I could get some Z's. Thanks JD!

Seas were pretty rough once we got past Wadah Is. Looking at the tide change, there was a -1.2 low tide at about 10 AM. Having a big minus tide like that really killed the bite and made seas rough.

We started out the day fishing just off Wadah Is. We used the normal assortment of bottom fishing gear with no results.

To take shelter from the big swells, we eventually fished closer to shore, in search of sea bass, slowly making our way to Tatoosh Is. We did not get any fish along the shore line.

We made our way to Tatoosh Is. and found a relatively calm drift between the island and the mainland. JD picked up a barely legal sized ling cod drifting whole herring on the bottom. He later hooked in to a fish (don't know what it was) that took his herring and made a run straight for shallower water close to the island. A real line peeler! We even gave chase with the boat. After several minutes of raw, fish horsepower, ripping line JD's line went slack. FISH OFF! We could not believe it, what a fight!

With the seas still pretty rough and getting rougher we decided to make our way back to Wadah Is. searching for calmer water. Now that the tide was coming back in the water smoothed out nicely around Wadah.

We started fishing in 70 feet of water slowly drifting out to 120 feet of water. Once we were in 100 feet of water I started to pick up some sea bass on a white 6oz Stinger jig. At one point, I could not even get my jig to the bottom and the rock fish were hitting it. Cast after cast after cast I was catching bottom fish. I caught several large black sea bass, a couple of greenling, several small ling cod, a quilback rockfish, a canary rockfish, and a couple of other kinds of rock fish that I did not know the names of. JD's catch rate had slowed a bit and he was desperately searching his tackle box for a large white jig so he could get in on the fun. The catching lasted for about an hour after the tide change. Then the catching stopped cold.

The rain started to fall and the wind picked up so we decided to call it a day about 2 PM.

All in all a pretty slow day out at Neah Bay. I don't know if the slow fishing was because of the big tide swing or the new moon.

*Editor's Note: Carl, glad to see you got out to Neah Bay this year - wish I could have joined you! Mike

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