Neah Bling report

[ibn]

I took an old co-worker and his elderly dad out to Neah Bay this weekend, neither one fly fished, and neither had been boating in the ocean. I don't own salmon gear rods so I had them using fly rods. This limeted us to bucktailing most of the time as they were having a hard enough time standing up, let alone trying to learn to cast heavy lines on the water.

When we arrived on Friday night we set up camp and hit the sack, Saturday morning I talked to an angler camping next to us, he said he'd been here for a week and that they had caught 0 salmon. They were happy though, as they had loaded up on halibut and bottomfish. Even showed me his home made livewell made out of a cooler, a bilge pump, tubing and some creative fiberglassing.

Saturday morning started out very foggy, I had to use a GPS to make my way to the usual haunts. The ocean was flat smooth and grey. I had some doubts after hearing the earlier report, but I gained some hope as I had a solid take as I was letting out line to begin bucktailing. We had another hit shortly after but no hookups. Then the bite turned off. We went about an hour with no fish. I decided to head north into the fog and further into the straits. Hit a new rip and soon begin to hookup in neah bay fashion. Up through early afternoon the fishing was pretty consistent.

I got boarded pirate style by WDFW and issued an 80$ ticket for not filling out my punch card on one of the salmon we had retained. That sucked and killed my fishing buzz, they checked me for pretty much everything and I came up clean except for forgetting to mark a fish down :mad: . Oh well, at least they're out there enforcing. They were pretty suprised to see we had 5 hatchery fish, as no one else they had checked had any hatchery fish, and not many were hooking/releasing wild fish either.

To end my lengthy report on a happier note. The last couple trips out to Neah Bay I've gotten to know one of the young members of the family who own Big Salmon resort. An 18 year old kid named Anthony, I got him hooked into a lingcod and a couple rockfish last weekend and low and behold he went out and bought a fly rod, a reel and a sinking line. I had given him a few flies, I found out this weekend that he had caught a couple more bass and was working on his casting in his yard. It was neat to see someone get so exciting for fishing his home water, even though he'd been fishing it his whole life with gear, it was like a new challenge for him. Ahh the birth of another addict.

-I

[Zen Piscator]

Bling, my favorite word. Sounds like a bitchin good time. Sorry about the punch card, i never fill my out until i get home with steelies, although i think i will bring a pen with me next time I'm out. Awesome word with getting the 18 year old to hold a long rod, its addicting, sounds like he's got it already.

Peace,
Andy

[Mingo]

Cool report Ibn........shoot man bucktailing is a blast, I do it in Cabo all the time! Who cares if it isn't "pure" to some people........I look at it as motorized float tubing.

cool you got that lad into bug sticks....I have successfully converted my bud Manicotti Mitts to fly fishing for trout exclusively too, now he can't imagine using a spinning stick for them any more....next up for him, salmon on the fly.

thanks for the report, sorry about the bust.....I've had to use a hook point to "scratch" a fish on my card when I forgot a pen once and it barely got me out of a ticket myself, but they let me go when they clearly saw I made an effort and I told the guy I was going to go over it in ink back at my truck.

[luv2fly2]

when bucktailing do you use a spinner and or any beads on the leader before tying the fly on? do you fish the prop wash or have a lot of line out? do all bucktails have two hooks in one fly? thanks, mike w

[ibn]

No spinners or beads. I just use baitfish patterns (shock and awe) with lots of flash. I troll w/my entire fly line out. I usually leave like 1 or 2 wraps of it on the reel, but that's it. I also use Rio Striper lines. I think the regs are single barbless out there, as most of the fish you will be catching are wild cohos.

[Uncle Jimmy]

I think I was the boat next to you. We came over there to hit that short tide bite. Its been pretty good in that area but really only on that tide. In addition to the silvers and pinks we managed a hook up on a decent king only to unbutton him boat side. Killer rock fish that morning, found about a half acre of black rocks on top on the morning slack. Nice to have decent water for a change.
Jim

[SeaRun1]

We were out there on that Saturday as well. Ironically we caught our five silvers in about an hour. We had eight silvers of which only three were wild. Same story on Friday as well only it was three silvers with three hatchery fish. We worked the area right around the red bouy outside of Duncan Rock. There were enough pinks around Waddah on Friday and Saturday to drive a guys nuts if you were looking for Coho. Saturday was the only day we were up there where it felt like the Neah Bay I was used to. This year is really shaping up to be an odd one.

SeaRun1