Orcas area fishing ideas

[Stein]

Hey guys, I'm hurting here and would appreciate any ideas you are willing to share.  We are going to spend a week on Orcas (West Beach area) and unlike most years, salmon and shrimp are closed.  My son loves fishing and I'm trying to fill in the gap here.

We have sand dab down and will be doing that, same with crabbing.

The only options I can see for other fish are kelp greenling and cabezon. 

For greenling, sounds like you fish them with soft plastics around kelp similar to black rockfish off the coast.  For cabezon, sounds like using plastic shrimp, crab or cut baitfish in rockpiles is the key.

Anyone willing to share tactics, other options I missed or general areas to try would be much appreciated.  I'm hitting the maps today to try to find a few starting points.

At this point, I would just like to get into some pretty fast action stuff, keeper or not.  My son is 12, so it's a quantity over quality game.

I also thought we could just find a school of herring and deploy the sabiki rod and get some bat for crab and cabezon, but herring is closed in MA7 year round!?  Jeez.

[lokidog]

Not sure where your salmon closure comes from... unless there is a special closure, which I have not seen.

July 1-July 31 Chinook - min. size 22". Other salmon species - no min. size. Daily limit 2. Only 1 hatchery Chinook may be retained.
Release chum and wild Chinook. See Southern Rosario Strait/ Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca Closure below. See
Bellingham Bay Closure and Fishery, Samish Bay Closure, and Yellow and Low Islands Preserve on previous
page. Season may close earlier if Chinook guideline is attained.
Aug. 1-Aug. 15 No min. size. Daily limit 2. Release Chinook and chum.
Aug. 16-Aug. 31 Chinook min. size 22". Other salmon species - no min. size.

Also, herring is open except for up north...

Year-round No min. size. Daily limit 10 lbs., all species combined. All smelt caught must be kept and count toward the daily limit
except Closed to eulachon (Columbia River smelt). Herring - Closed year-round north of a line from Sandy Point to Patos
Island to the Canadian boundary.

Sculpins are pretty easy to catch, and there are some bigger ones like Great, Buffalo, and Red Irish Lords to eat. Gear down to a trout rod and 1/2-3/4 oz jig with a 2" Gulp twister tail. Look for cobble instead of sand/mud and you can get into some decent Rock Sole. You almost want to be dragging your jig on the bottom.

[Shannon]

Any kelp bed should have a few greenlings. I use to not be able to keep them off on a 3" chrome jig. Your kid should have fun. There usually isn't a shortage of them.

[Stein]

Thanks Loki, I was looking on the WDFW app on my phone and it just said July 1-31.

We'll be up there before the 16th, not sure why they close chinook from Aug 1-16 but sounds like we're still out of luck unless there are coho around which sounds way early and nothing I know about.

I'll pick up some jigs as you mentioned and give that a go for sculpin.

Thanks Shannon, I think I have some chrome stuff I can dig out and throw in the boat.

[7mmfan]

3" diamond jig painted green. I usually just sharpie mine. If there are greenling around they will inhale it. As far as spots go, I don't have anything up that way, but if it's rocky 10'-25' with kelp around it, you'll find a few. They also like areas with current flow, as they are homebodies, so shallow isolated rock piles, points, etc... seem to produce.

[Angry Perch]

Not sure where your salmon closure comes from... unless there is a special closure, which I have not seen.

July 1-July 31 Chinook - min. size 22". Other salmon species - no min. size. Daily limit 2. Only 1 hatchery Chinook may be retained.
Release chum and wild Chinook. See Southern Rosario Strait/ Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca Closure below. See
Bellingham Bay Closure and Fishery, Samish Bay Closure, and Yellow and Low Islands Preserve on previous
page. Season may close earlier if Chinook guideline is attained.
Aug. 1-Aug. 15 No min. size. Daily limit 2. Release Chinook and chum.
Aug. 16-Aug. 31 Chinook min. size 22". Other salmon species - no min. size.

Also, herring is open except for up north...

Year-round No min. size. Daily limit 10 lbs., all species combined. All smelt caught must be kept and count toward the daily limit
except Closed to eulachon (Columbia River smelt). Herring - Closed year-round north of a line from Sandy Point to Patos
Island to the Canadian boundary.

Sculpins are pretty easy to catch, and there are some bigger ones like Great, Buffalo, and Red Irish Lords to eat. Gear down to a trout rod and 1/2-3/4 oz jig with a 2" Gulp twister tail. Look for cobble instead of sand/mud and you can get into some decent Rock Sole. You almost want to be dragging your jig on the bottom.

Loki,
Do you do much herring fishing? I think it sounds pretty cool. Should have my place done in a few weeks and will start doing some fishing out of Sequim.

[lokidog]

Not sure where your salmon closure comes from... unless there is a special closure, which I have not seen.

July 1-July 31 Chinook - min. size 22". Other salmon species - no min. size. Daily limit 2. Only 1 hatchery Chinook may be retained.
Release chum and wild Chinook. See Southern Rosario Strait/ Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca Closure below. See
Bellingham Bay Closure and Fishery, Samish Bay Closure, and Yellow and Low Islands Preserve on previous
page. Season may close earlier if Chinook guideline is attained.
Aug. 1-Aug. 15 No min. size. Daily limit 2. Release Chinook and chum.
Aug. 16-Aug. 31 Chinook min. size 22". Other salmon species - no min. size.

Also, herring is open except for up north...

Year-round No min. size. Daily limit 10 lbs., all species combined. All smelt caught must be kept and count toward the daily limit
except Closed to eulachon (Columbia River smelt). Herring - Closed year-round north of a line from Sandy Point to Patos
Island to the Canadian boundary.

Sculpins are pretty easy to catch, and there are some bigger ones like Great, Buffalo, and Red Irish Lords to eat. Gear down to a trout rod and 1/2-3/4 oz jig with a 2" Gulp twister tail. Look for cobble instead of sand/mud and you can get into some decent Rock Sole. You almost want to be dragging your jig on the bottom.

Loki,
Do you do much herring fishing? I think it sounds pretty cool. Should have my place done in a few weeks and will start doing some fishing out of Sequim.

I don't use herring much.  There are times south of Decatur where it is just one huge school and dropping a sabiki rig into it would probably be effective. They are 2 1/2-3" this time of year there.


Stein, another idea would be to fish for Dogfish, they are fun to catch and should be below anywhere you mark a school of herring. I caught some with trout rod and spoons last year and had a blast. They are not bad eating either if nothing better is on the stringer. 

[Stein]

Sabiki work well on herring and anchovies, there are a ton of the former pretty much everywhere in Puget Sound right now.

[jamesfromseattle]

With greenling, I think you're right on the money--pretty much just fish then like black rockfish on the coast, but in my experience I'd say focus more on kelp than rockpiles.  I agree with 7mmfan's assessment of 10'-25' + rock + kelp.  Buzz bombs get expensive when you've got kids breaking them off in kelp all day, but they are my favorite.  But they'll hit just about any sort of jig.

If you start running into juvenile lings, who tend to be in the same habitat, just move to a different kelpbed.

I haven't crossed over into Canada recently so I don't know what all that entails at the moment, but you're relatively close to some decent ling fishing in Canadian waters.  I haven't checked the seasons, but it used to be open through the summer when I fished up there more often.  If you decide to go that route, shoot me a pm and I'll give you a couple spots if I can remember them.  Probably not going to be as fast as the greenling of dog fish locally, though.

Not fishing related, but Sucia and Jones Island are nearby and are fun places to spend a day. 

[jamesfromseattle]

Stuart Island is the one I was thinking of, not Jones.  A little more room to stretch the legs on Stuart.

[Stein]

Yeah, we hit Stuart last year, nice little hike.

I hadn't looked into Canada, probably not in the cards this year but I'll certainly look into it next year.

It used to be a slam dunk to pop up to 7 for the week and hit shrimp and chinook, now nothing with WDFW is a slam dunk. 

[snake]

Try jigging some needle fish jigs off bottom, in about 20-40 FOW. You should catch a bunch of dog fish sharks. your kid would enjoy it. 

[Stein]

Yeah, we have pulled our share of dogs off Possession Bar.  I tried cooking one up one time when I pulled what could have been the state record up one day halibut fishing but it wasn't my cup of tea.

I spent my shrimp bait budget on jigs and plastics, thanks everyone for the ideas.  We should be loaded for bear once FedEx shows up tomorrow along with a quick trip to John's yesterday.  I mistakenly thought this would be the one time Cabelas would have what i needed but alas I walked out of there empty handed.  They had one out of the 7 things on my list so I just gave up and ordered everything I couldn't get from John's online.

[Stein]

Looks like hali might be an option, I have an old map showing them by Skipjack Island north of Waldron, anyone happen to fish up there for flatties?  There is a nice slack Thusday morning I might try, only need to throw in a couple of rods and a package of black label to make that happen.