July 21, 2011

On this chilly July morning we had aboard good buddies Gary Bland and Dave Massey both of Bellingham. We left the docks at 6:15am and arrived on the fishing grounds around 6:45am. We were again at "the Wall" and got two rods fishing at 95 and 105 feet in 115 feet of water. We were coming into high tide slack and were marking both bait and gamefish arches on the sounder. Within 20 minutes of trolling, wham!!! This 27 pound slab crushed the Dr. Death and began peeling line like crazy. After a great fight we got her in the net and got the gear right back down. As we worked our way through a few more passes along the wall with nothing doing, we began to troll around the corner into Thatcher pass and the "Slime rock". Just as we were off of the beach from Slime rock, boom, another solid take down. This time it was "Super" Dave Massey on the reel. We got some great video of the insuing battle, and within 10 minutes Dave was proudly posing with this 20 pound chromer! Funny how when something works, it just works. The Dr. Death hoochie at this point had produced 22, 27 and 20 pound kings in right around two hours of total fishing time over the course of a morning and the previous evening. The two kings pictured below were on the deck by 8:45am. We should have stuck with plan B at this point and run back in for 18 holes!! The rest of the day was a bust as the tide began a huge ebb. Fun times with the BGCC crew!!

July 20, 2011

Here is what has been the latest weapon of choice in the San Juans for the Shamahawk crew. We have been running it 46" behind a purple onion flasher. We started working gear once again at the wall at the end of the flood and here's what the Dr. Death produced the first time in the water before we even got a second rod wet!! With his usual intensity, Eric Pedersen scolds the captain as he is playing this fish for capturing the moment rather than grabbing the net!! Sorry I couldn't figure out how to rotate the image




After a nice battle with this 22 pound beauty, the result is one proud fisherman. Here are a couple of nice shots of Eric and the Captain. Notice in the background of Eric's photo Strawberry Island at the south end of Cypress Island and the town of Anacortes just over his left shoulder. His co-workers couldn't believe this was not an old photo, "But I just watched you guys leave the harbor 25 minutes ago!" We left at 4:30pm, ran for 20-25 minutes and had this slab on the line within 3 minutes of fishing. We then trolled for about another half and hour and were home by 6pm!! What a place we live...

July 14, 2011

Shamahawk headed out of Bellingham for some evening salmon fishing with friends Dave Clark of Clearwater Marine and Eric Pedersen. We started our evening off at the southeast corner of Blakely Island at a spot known as "The Wall". The tide was in the last hour of the flood and the back eddy coming off of the backside of the island was piling a massive amount of bait in the area. The sounder was littered with arches of fish below. With nothing happening after 45 minutes we decided to move a few miles up and hit the tide change at Obstruction pass. As we came off of plane and got our lines ready, again the sounder was showing arches all through the water columns and every bird around had candlefish overflowing from their bills. We dropped the lines to 65 feet with a Cookies'n'cream Kingfisher light 48" behind a white flahser and trolled for about 50 yards when this 17 pound beauty tripped the downrigger. After watching a few other fish get boated around us our daylight was coming to an end and it was time to head in. Wow, how lucky we are around here to be able to take a few hours in the evening go catch these beautiful fish right in our backyard!

2011 Anacortes Salmon Classic - Jason King, Eric Pedersen, Jim Fowler

Saturday morning came early with the Shamahawk crew meeting at the harbor at 5 a.m. sharp. We warmed the engines and pre-rigged the boat as we waited for the sun to come up. 5:50 a.m. we slowly head accross a calm Bellingham bay in low light as the sun was just starting to rise. We got to our spot at 6:30 a.m. and got the gear working right away. 5 minutes in my rod gets ripped from the downrigger! Fish on, and it's a good one. As we run the boat and get our gear up, this lucky fish spits the hook and it's back to work. 30 minutes later after some early morning razzing, Eric Pedersen boats a beauty on a hoochie that we think may be a contender. About this time we start recieving phone and text messages from our good buddy Mike Campion. He says he has the derby winner, and it's only 8 a.m. on day one.

We continue to work our first spot and hook and release one more native in the 14 pound range. We cruised to Waldron Island to hit one of our favorite spots and boy was that a good move. As we made our first pass, we drifted in on the reef and dropped off the backside as it deepened from 65 to 110 feet. Smack, an 18 pound native that we release. Run back up and make the same drift in the same spot and rip a 14 pound native. Next pass, another 14 pound native that we release. On our final pass before the tide picked up we nailed a 25 pound lingcod. We hit a few spots along the way to the weigh station in Anacortes with no further action. Our fish weighed in better than expected and ended up taking 7th spot out of 1,100 fisherman, not bad. We ended up with a Scotty downrigger for our efforts. However, our good friend Mike Campion and his crew ended up taking the top spot and the $15,000

December-April 30 Blackmouth

Blackmouth season proved early to be one of the best in recent years. Not only did we have and hear of regular catches, but the average size per fish was incredible. There were days of going

around Lummi in the afternoon for 2 1/2 hours of fishing and coming home with a 17, 16, 13 and releasing another 16. Some of the old sleeper spots were kicking out 8-10 fish on a morning tide! This sure made for some incredible meals this winter. There is no finer fish in the world than a fresh, troll caught black mouth. Halibut, crab cakes and salmon. MMM

2011 Roche Harbor Salmon Classic/Wine and "Cheese" Event

As we hit the middle of blackmouth season it is time to get into derby mode. The 2011 Roche Harbor Salmon Classic is in full swing, truly one of the highlight events of the year. Always good to see so many familiar faces having

a great time. We had some fun newcomers to the crew this year, shout out to "Little Miss"! As usual, we smashed it the first night with the annual Mental Floss wine and cheese event. Then it was Saturday morning and time for business. Our morning seemed to start our promising with two quick salmon strikes out of the riggers, but no hook ups. After spending a few more hours on the north side and scratching out one 10# fish, we decided to hit the south side. We had one more that we had to rele

ase and then with only 15 minutes remaining for before the daily time limit, boom. The reel screamed as an 18 pound hatchery chinook ripped off line. We got it in the boat with 3 minutes to spare and called it in to the fish patrol. It was good enough for a first day 4th place, but got bumped to 7th by the end of the second day. We did however as a total weight per boat take 5th place out of 100 boats. Good times

September-Dec. 1 Blackmouth opener

Great to be back in Bellingham! Time for mild fall weather and some crabbing. What a year to be a recreational crabber. With such a huge run of sockeye this fall, there is

no pressure on the crabs. That just means you need to call some friends with licenses before you go check your pots!

We were averaging 15 keepers per pot (4 pots), that were an average of 7 inches and up to 9 inches. We ate it every which way and lots of it. We had so much left over that we cracked 9 pounds of fresh meat and made crab cakes, my favorite! Ready for blackmouth!