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!