Fishing with Cliff

Puget Sound needs some serious help and it doesn’t look like Christine Gregoire is going to hit her goal of cleaning up the Sound by 2010 like she promised.  The fact is that the fish runs are declining, water quality is not good and something needs to be done.

Lawmakers agonizing over the expense and complexity of cleaning up Puget Sound need to know their efforts are backed by legions of eager citizens already hard at work on the challenge.

Hundreds turned out on a brisk Saturday morning for Sound Waters 2010, presented by WSU Island County Beach Watchers.

A six-page list tallied those who led the daylong program of seminars spread across the combined campus of Coupeville High School and Middle School. The aggregation of experts and topics was impressive. So was the overflow crowd that paid to learn more and find out how to help.

Restoration of Puget Sound is an imperative for Washington’s environment, health and the economy. We live, work and play around a glorious body of water, and our intimate proximity is the essence of the dilemma. All the easily identified pollution sources are either under control or on the radar. The rest come from how we live and develop the land.

Cleanup confronts a nasty trifecta: industrial and agricultural effluent, human waste and stormwater runoff. The first two are works in progress, but the latter scours and flushes everything.
Read the full article.

I would definitely like to see more done to bring back the Salmon runs.  Lets cut off the commercial fishing and tell the Indians to go to hell.  If we don’t do something pretty drastic, we could see the end of Salmon fishing in Puget Sound in this lifetime!

Now is the time to get commenting if you want a say in the next round of rule changes for fishing in Washington State.  The WSDFW is taking written commentary on the new fishing rules and will be having a public meeting on December 4-5. 

Here are a couple of the proposed changes, but you should visit the WSDFW Website to read all of them and find out where to send your comments.

• Prohibit the harvest of all species of “unclassified” marine fish and invertebrates – such as blennies, tide pool sculpins, starfish, sand dollars and shorecrabs – which can either be found on Washington’s beaches or in nearshore waters. The proposal does not prohibit collecting empty shells from any species.
• Develop a set of protective measures for rockfish, including prohibiting retention of rockfish in marine areas 6 through 13 and closing the retention of bottomfish in waters deeper than 20 fathoms in marine areas 4 (east of the Bonilla-Tatoosh line) through 13.
• Close fishing seasons that allow retention of hatchery-reared steelhead a month earlier on a stretch of the Skagit River and two weeks earlier on portions of several other north Puget Sound rivers including the Pilchuck, Raging, Skykomish, Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Stillaguamish, Nooksack and north, south and middle Nooksack rivers, as well as Pilchuck creek. All of those rivers would close to retention of hatchery steelhead at the end of the day on Feb. 15 under proposals designed to further efforts to conserve and restore Puget Sound wild steelhead, which are listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

So if you want a say in how our fishery is managed, now is the time to take action.  Kind of like when the election comes around, this is your time to complain and make a difference so get on it!

Thomas and I got out Saturday morning for some Winter Chinook Salmon fishing in area 8-2.  I know area 9 just opened up, but considering the dense fog that was blanketing the sound, copious logs and trees floating in the water, and our shitty Lowrance GPS that has ceased to function, we decided to stick to fishing up around Hat Island.

Right off the bat we dropped our gear in 40′ of water and started a sweep of the shallows.  Not 15 minutes later my line breaks loose.  Much to my surprise, it is a 1.5# hatchery Chinook.  Not a bad way to start off the day.  Unfortunately that was our only hook up with a fish. 

We did however manage to lock horns twice with what looked to be old debris from fishing nets.  One chunk was even attached to a 10# chunk of steel.  We had a great time getting a barnacle encrusted rope, with a weight on one end and kelp and sea critters on the length of it, untangled from the downrigger wire.  Oh well, we didn’t lose any gear on it, so all is well.

We are headed out again next week, Hell bent on learning the tricks of Winter Chinook Salmon fishing in area 8-2.  Working from the advice I have heard for Steelhead fishing, we are picking a spot and working it until we know all the secrets.  So if you want to find us, look around Hat island!

P.S.  Video of this trip will be up soon!

Looks like at least a little of the state budget will be going toward something I approve of, fish habitat restoration and protection!

The state Salmon Recovery Funding Board has slated the projects in Walla Walla and Columbia counties for more than $1.6 million in funding. The awards were announced by Gov. Chris Gregoire Friday.
Six projects totaling $931,664 are in Walla Walla County and four totaling $694,619 are in Columbia County. The money from state and federal sources will be disbursed in coming months as contracts are approved, said Susan Zemek of the state Recreation and Conservation Office.
Project grants in several cases will be matched by donations of labor, equipment and funds from the applicants.  The Full Article

This is just a small part of the $19.8 million dollars in state grants that have been approved by the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office.  While I complain a lot about what is going on with fishery management, it does please me to see at least something being done to restore habitat and give our fish a fighting chance.

Now if we can just knock back commercial and indian fishing a bit we might just get some Salmon runs back in good shape!

Looks like the fish got another one. According to King5 News, the body of an unidentified fisherman was found Saturday morning at 9:30 in two feet of water along the Skykomish River.

GOLD BAR, Wash. – The body of a fisherman was found Saturday morning in the Skykomish River near Gold Bar in Snohomish County.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover says the body was discovered about 9:30 a.m. in a couple feet of water, with his fishing pole nearby.

Investigators haven’t identified the man and it’s unclear how long he had been in the water. Hover says there were no signs of foul play.

I am going to wager a guess that he either had a heart attack and fell in, or slipped and cracked his nut on a rock, which would be really easy to do out there at Gold Bar, up around Reiter Ponds. Either way it really points out the dangers of fishing alone.  I know when I got out fishing I usually go with someone and try to keep them in sight at all times.  Even along the sandy shores, one slip can put you underwater.  If you go under and no one sees you go down, you are as good as gone.

Be smart out there people, stay safe and take a buddy fishing with you!

Having a solid list of sites to do research on Puget Sound Fishing Reports can definitely help solve the issue of ‘the fish will be here in two weeks’ or ‘you should have been here last week’ which is what we hear quite often when we go fishing on Puget Sound.

Here are a few of the tools we use to research Puget Sound Salmon fishing and find out if we should be catching fish or buying extra beer and munchies.

• WDFW Puget Sound Creel Reports
• WDFW Weekender Reports
• Steelheader.net Saltwater Reports
• Newspaper Outdoor Reports
• Salmon University Fishing Reports

So before you start planning your trip, take a look at the Puget Sound fishing reports and see what the fishing will be like and what to expect!

For a change of pace The Reverend and I along with some of my neighbors, trooped down to the Edmonds Pier last night to try and catch some Squid.  Yeah, the wind and intermittent driving rain made this a ton of fun along with utter lack of Squid.

After giving up on that we dropped lines for anything else that we could catch.  One of my neighbors managed to catch three Spotted Rat Fish which look pretty cool, but aren’t good for much else. 

At least the company was good and we could B.S. while we sat there and caught nothing.  Sad to see the water so devoid of fish, and it just reinforces the fact that we need to all work to improve the fishing in Puget Sound!

We took these photos a while ago and I see that people seem to be finding them by searching Flickr for ‘puget sound’ and ‘Sea Serpent’ so I thought I would post them here since it is Halloween.  Here is our encounter with the Puget Sound Sea Monster!  If you like creepy stuff like this be sure to check out the Florida Mystery Fish!

What is this Sea Serpent doing in
Puget Sound?

We dared to get closer to this Puget Sound Sea Monster
despite the danger of being attacked and eaten!

Perhaps this Sea Monster is why we
never catch any fish in Puget Sound