Work, work, work, fish, work, work, work… seems to be the flow of my summer. You would think that I would sleep in on one of my few days off. Nooooo, Sunday we were up at 1:30 for a 3:00 launch at Cornet Bay. With a plan we headed through Deception Pass in the dark. Arriving at eagle Bluff at 4:00 it was still dark but the day was dawning.

It didn’t take long to get the gear down and we were on the hunt. My plan was to fish the Tide Point to Eagle Bluff area through the high slack then move over to Obstruction Pass for the ebb tide. We started at Tide Point and worked various depth lines up and around Eagle Bluff. We trolled various depth contours between 40’ – 110’ and did not really see any significant bait. Even when we saw bait on the meter there were no salmon showing.

Very odd for this time of the year but it is what it is. As planned, we worked the area through the high slack, catching 3 nice lingcod, a bunch of dogfish and a shaker that were all released. It was time to move on.

A short hop across Rosario Straight and we were back in business. The tidal conditions were perfect for the area and we were seeing many pockets of both bait and lurking salmon on the meter. We missed a solid take down (my fault) I was, well you know… when the fish hit and between trying to finish up and grab the rod, I lost the fish. We had a couple more drive bys and were just making a turn at the east end of the pass when one of the riggers pops. Initially I thought that it was a huge chinook. The fish was bent on swimming back to Alaska and made numerous reel screaming long runs before we slid the net under it. Not as big as I had initially thought but a nice fish anyway.

Both at Eagle Bluff and at Obstruction Pass we were trolling 11’ flashers followed by either a cookies and cream spoon or a sand lance tube fly. For the most part we were chasing meter marks but when there were no fish on the meter, I would drag the gear along the bottom. I was topping the fly with herring strips and smearing anchovy Smelly Gelly on the spoons.

We still had my plan to consider so we decided to head back through Deception Pass to set crab pots in Marine Area 8-1. As per my plan and a promise for some crab we put out two crab pots in one of our stock Marine Area 8-1 crab spots, set an anchor close by and took a nap. 1 ½ hours later and feeling refreshed we pulled anchor and got to the business of pulling our pots. Pot 1 was completely loaded with crabs but we were only able to keep a handful of crab. Pot 2 was ¾ full and very heavy. We were able to limit on mostly 7” + males. I love sorting crabs, the bounty of the sea always amazes me. We even had a crab that was about the size of our dungies but it was shaped more like a king crab, don’t know what it was but it was pretty cool looking.

Our day was amazing, sometimes I forget just how lucky we are to live here in the PNW. Salmon, crab, absolutely spectacular scenery and good company. Does it get better than that?

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