[rotato]

Fear the Rotator....

You don't have to fear me
I let my buddy catch plenty of fish from the bow yesterday
Had fun running ahead of schools of jumpers and casting to them
We saw a few swimmers and when we focused we were on a school of a couple hundred
Spotty but fun in area 11

 

[chongfk]

Okay, so if you lived in South Puget Sound (I'm near Olympia), and you wanted to go try for your first saltwater beach salmon fishing, where would you wish someone had told you about trying? What patterns would you hope they would have suggested? I have a 7-weight and a 6-weight. Which would you recommend for pinks in the salt from the beach? Sink tip, full sinking, floating line? Complete newbie to the saltwater pink idea, and want to try something other than the Puyallup river spinning crowd. (Are they even running in the Puyallup yet? I have no idea what the water flow is like there or in the Nisqually right now. Thanks for any useful advice. Want to take my adult son (college boy) and give this a try this year.

I can only recommend what I know, and the most southward (in relation to I-5) I have ever fish is browns and dash point area and the hood canal area. Browns point area I mostly fish the lighthouse and dash point state park. The light house has plenty of room for fly fisher (probably not the hot spot, you need to go really early for those), but the parking is a nightmare, there's simply not enough, but that also making sure it will never get too crowded. I fish the lighthouse yesterday as a buzz bomber and I saw at least 5 fly fishers there (I was there at 5:30am but there were already in the water), and they kill it, I saw one fly guy catching what seems like at least 8 fish in a row while the spin guy where going maybe three in a row at most when the fishing got hot. The rest of the fly guy did very well as well. So the lighthouse is definitely a good place to fly fish, plenty of room. Dash point state park is an amazing beach to fly fish, flat and shallow throughout, plenty of room to cast. The problems? well, it is too flat and shallow, you can walk miles in the water and it is still only waist deep. For the same reason, people rarely fish there (at least I didn't see them too often), but I know there's fish, I saw them while flounder fishing, there's definitely salmon, and seems to be a good amount of SRC as well, if I am not mistaken. I am going to fly fish there one of these days, because it just seem so inviting, as soon as I replace my broken fly rod and reel. Hood canal is an amazing place to fly fish, you can often find open waters with no body fishing. All the state park are worth trying, and there's lots of small, not well known public access on the north end, I have personally caught salmon at a couple of those state parks public access. The narrows, Gig Harbor, Purdy (I think), Bremerton, Port Orcard (I think) are all good spot for fly fishing in the salt, there should be some general fishing info on this site and on the net for these area. This is what I have for the south end, sorry nothing is closer to Olympia since I am really not familiar with the area. As for me, I am mainly going to concentrate on the lighthouse and state park this year. Cheers and tight lines. The pinks are in!

 

[chongfk]

Fished Browns Point Lighthouse as a buzz bomber yesterday, since I was not fly fishing, I am only going report on what I saw from the fly fisher there. I got there by 5:30am yesterday (almost did not find parking, at 5:30am!!!), I saw maybe about 3 fly fisher when I hit the water, and 2 or 3 other show up later. No body caught anything at the beginning of the day, until maybe around 6:30 or so, the fly guy strike first, and he keeps getting fish while non of us, including other fly guys, had any luck. Things change around 7am for everybody, suddenly, tight lines all over, fishing are getting hot, even I got one (I don't really know what I am doing with a buzz bomb, I use it because I know it can go far, and the pinks like pink ). The fly guy though, they were killing it, especially that one fly guy. While almost everybody is going the most three fish in a row, the fly guy seems to be already on his 8th fish, amazing to watch. Too bad I didn't have time to talk to him to maybe steal some secret from him. Whenever the fish start biting, he seems to be the one who caught it first, it almost feels like he is the one who started it all, he is the one who enticed the fish to bite for everybody. Whenever fishing got slow, he would some how catch a fish and started the frenzy all over again for everybody. I was out of the water by 7:30am with two pinks (kind of small), so I don't know how they did after that, but if what I saw is any indication, the pinks are in, and they are starting to bite, good times is rolling in. Cheers and tight lines to all

 

[Connordude27]

The fly guys killed it a browns today for the fishing not being too hot. A few limited. Not much luck for the buzzbombers but there was a few fish caught when a school came through. The seals weren't all that aggressive with hooked fish although one swam right between two guys.

 

[Stonefish]

They should be in good numbers in the south sound any day now.
Based on the daily beach and boat intel I've been getting from friends plus the creel checks, pink success in the straits has really dropped off.
A lot of the fish were in the southern part of MA 9 and up into MA 8-2 this weekend. Observed many pods heading south and east. Tons of boats in both areas this weekend.
I'd think the eastside and south sound beaches should pop pretty good here any day now.
SF

 

[Nick Clayton]

Just got off the water here in area 9 out of Kingston in Bagmans boat. Awfully slow this morning. Very few fish seen or hooked. I caught 3 and lost 4 or 5, and Al lost one. Just blind casting into the rips.

Definitely looks like the run is dwindling quickly up here. Anyone wanting the pink stink should probably be focused further south

 

[Matthew Kaphan]

Okay, so if you lived in South Puget Sound (I'm near Olympia), and you wanted to go try for your first saltwater beach salmon fishing, where would you wish someone had told you about trying? What patterns would you hope they would have suggested? I have a 7-weight and a 6-weight. Which would you recommend for pinks in the salt from the beach? Sink tip, full sinking, floating line? Complete newbie to the saltwater pink idea, and want to try something other than the Puyallup river spinning crowd. (Are they even running in the Puyallup yet? I have no idea what the water flow is like there or in the Nisqually right now. Thanks for any useful advice. Want to take my adult son (college boy) and give this a try this year.

There's beach access if you follow the [redacted] trail from the [redacted]. Park at the [redacted] and catch the trail. It's about a 15 minute walk to the beach. It's a fairly uninteresting beach, but it's on the way to the Nisqually and the fish have to pass through the water there to get to the river. I've only been out once and didn't see much, but I think my timing was bad. I'd head out there as soon as you hear reports of pinks being in the Nisqually. Report back if you do any good. I'd be interested to know if the fish come close enough to catch.

MK

 

[Chucker]

Just got off the water here in area 9 out of Kingston in Bagmans boat. Awfully slow this morning. Very few fish seen or hooked. I caught 3 and lost 4 or 5, and Al lost one. Just blind casting into the rips.

Definitely looks like the run is dwindling quickly up here. Anyone wanting the pink stink should probably be focused further south

That was a quick run, if it really is slowing down.

 

[Nick Clayton]

That was a quick run, if it really is slowing down.

They've been coming thru area 9 for longer than I think people realize.

Might have been just an off day, but after what I've seen the past few weeks it sure felt like it was petering off.

 

[mtskibum16]

I was pretty happy with the results, considering the conditions. We got on em pretty hot there for a while just wind drifting. All flies certainly worked. Matt's Handlebar produced all day, you tried a variety of flies including the old standby PSPK, and when I did fish a bit they certainly didn't dislike my size 4 two toned pink marabou clouser.
Most of the fish on the small side as per usual this year, but Matt released a beautiful buck later in the day that was the nicest pink I've seen this year.

That was a fun day @Nick Clayton! Thanks again. My arm is actually sore! Thanks for conning Nick in to taking us out @Irafly!

 

[m.albrecht]

They've been coming thru area 9 for longer than I think people realize.

Might have been just an off day, but after what I've seen the past few weeks it sure felt like it was petering off.

 

[Stonefish]

That was a quick run, if it really is slowing down.

Not really considering that pinks were being caught in mid July. That will be about a month of arriving fish come this weekend. I think the weather has their timing off this year.
Things are about two weeks early this year from what I've seen. Most years fishing generally dies off pretty quickly once September rolls around but there are always stragglers around.
I saw one humpy caught in MA 9 last weekend that looked like it should have been miles up the Sky.
All humped up and sporting a new green paint job with some serious red ass rash.
SF

 

[quilbilly]

Thank God its over.....

 

[Thrasybulus]

That green humpy with diaper rash met a gruesome end when the buzz bomb tossing sea gulls decended on it when it hit the sand.

I saw one humpy caught in MA 9 last weekend that looked like it should have been miles up the Sky.
All humped up and sporting a new green paint job with some serious red ass rash.
SF

 

[Steelhead]

It's not dying down, the creel ratios at Sekiu are the same as Puget Sound. I'm sure most people out there aren't even targeting them.

 

[Nick Clayton]

Very few pinks seen at the beach this morning

 

[mcdejer16]

Very hot today at LP the big pods of fish would come by every 15 minutes, some buzz bombers caught their limit in an hour. I got one, and another fly fisherman got a nice coho.

 

[Stonefish]

Very hot today at LP the big pods of fish would come by every 15 minutes, some buzz bombers caught their limit in an hour. I got one, and another fly fisherman got a nice coho.

Nice work.
I figured it would turn on for the Eastside beaches based on what I saw go by last weekend.
The south sound guys should whack them pretty good this weekend.

Got a couple of reports from folks today that it was pretty slow up north this morning. A few pinks landed but not many.
SF

 

[RichieRich]

Just got off the water here in area 9 out of Kingston in Bagmans boat. Awfully slow this morning. Very few fish seen or hooked. I caught 3 and lost 4 or 5, and Al lost one. Just blind casting into the rips.

Definitely looks like the run is dwindling quickly up here. Anyone wanting the pink stink should probably be focused further south

I was out at the same time in a different area and it was slow where I was.

 

[Starman77]

Along with 12 other fishermen, most of whom were casting flies, I fished off Dash Point State Park this morning (Tuesday, August 11th) in my float tube. There seemed to be more pinks showing than there were 12 days ago when I last fished this location, so maybe the main run is finally arriving in the south sound. At first I tried several of my large attractor patterns, but had no takers. Thinking that maybe these were fresher pinks than I encountered last time, I switched to a smaller pattern and was soon into a strong pink salmon. The action was somewhat sporadic, but I landed and released 5 pinks in the 19 to 21 inch range, all noticeably stronger than the two I landed 12 days ago. I had one other on for a bit and another strong hit. All fish took this fly that was tied up by a friend (the fly is soaking wet in this photo):

That hackle is red, not pink, and the body is some type of yellow chenille. This fly is unweighted.

I was anchored in 7 to 10 feet of water and was using a 5 weight RIO Aqualux clear intermediate full sinking line. I was letting the fly sink 8 to 16 seconds (or about 2 to 4 feet) before retrieving using the Euphausid Hop Retrieve (short 6" strips with good wrist action and moderate speed, with no pauses). Hits were hard and solid with all the fish hooked in the corner of the mouth.

Two guys in kayaks seemed to be doing pretty well, and I saw/heard of 4 pinks caught by the shore fishermen. I think it helped to be out in kayaks or float tubes to get out to where the fish were located.

Got to see a seal chase a big sculpin around my float tube, which was my highlight wildlife sighting of the day.

Rex