MA-7 Fishing

[pickardjw]

Headed on an island hopping adventure with some family and friends on a 49' cabin cruiser out of Anacortes this weekend. Not really a fishing trip but I'm considering bringing some gear if there are any decent opportunities.

Just starting to look into it. Any recommendations on species I could focus my research on? Have a dingy and some kayaks on the boat.

[O. Nerka]

As far as salmon pinks and hatchery coho are the only ones open to retention so that would be my recommendation.  Rig up a spinning rod with a Buzz Bomb and cast for jumpers as you spot them.  There ought to be a bunch of fish around.

[pickardjw]

As far as salmon pinks and hatchery coho are the only ones open to retention so that would be my recommendation.  Rig up a spinning rod with a Buzz Bomb and cast for jumpers as you spot them.  There ought to be a bunch of fish around.

Pinks were definitely on my mind.

I come from the Gulf where you can throw a chunk of squid or cut bait on, toss it out and catch all sorts of things. So that's where my head gravitates to in the salt but the rules are a lot more strict/varied out here. Not sure what I'd catch other than dogfish.

Not sure if fluke is worth trying for or anything in a bay where we'd be moored up and have the kayaks out.

[Mfowl]

You can easily catch sand dab/flounders but they are not particularly interesting. They are mostly pretty small and mainly caught as bait for lingcod. Your best bet would be casting buzz bombs or pink hoochie jigs for the pink salmon. They won't likely be in bays where you are moored up but out in the open water/travel lanes past the islands. you will probably see jumpers indicating their presence. They are fun to catch on light tackle and if they are around in numbers it can be fast action. Another option could be searun cutthroat. Not sure if they are very common in the islands but they are fished up close to shore using basic trout gear like small spinners/spoons.

[KP-Skagit]

Not sure if the goal is to catch fish or keep fish. Great fishing but a lot of restrictions on what you can keep. Last year about this time a buddy and I went fishing greenling and caught 4 or 5 lingcod that would have been legal in season. A dozen black rockfish we had to release and a dozen copper rockfish we had to release. Either mooching herring on the bottom where there is structure or casting twitch jigs into kelp beds. It was a blast but we got nothing we could keep. That was just fishing maybe 2 hours centered on slack tide.

Greenling and cabezon should be open and can be found doing either method mentioned.

As mentioned pinks are an option also.

[pickardjw]

Catch and/or keep. We won't be going out of the way to fish, just kind of a side quest while I'm out there for a couple days. Family is doing a full week, I gotta be at work on Tuesday unfortunately.

[Stein]

If you have a crab pot, that would be a good option.  With a kayak or dingy, I would be going after greenling and cabezon.  Throw some pink jigs in if you see them jumping around wherever you are.

[pickardjw]

If you have a crab pot, that would be a good option.  With a kayak or dingy, I would be going after greenling and cabezon.  Throw some pink jigs in if you see them jumping around wherever you are.

Thanks for the recs, I'll have to google what greenling are . Have a vague idea of what a cabezon is.

[Stein]

I use 1 or 2 oz jig heads with the copper penny Berkeley shrimp, Cabbies love them as do greenling and rockfish, pretty much anything down there.  Metal jigs work too.

[pickardjw]

Thanks for the recommendations everyone. Didn't get a ton of fishing time in but caught one copper rockfish (closed for retention) on that recommended Gulp shrimp. Boat had a crab pot onboard so I was able to soak that for a while. Picked up a red rock crab and two dungy's (one female thrown back, one huge male keeper).

Got the crab cooked up last night, I may need to buy a couple pots of my own. Too good!

Saw some pinks while we were motoring between islands, but moving at 10-14 knots with a tight schedule I couldn't convince the crew to stop haha.

[Stein]