Sekiu Fishing

[Go Aweigh2452]

Mike and I went to Sekiu over the rainy, cold weekend and Mike was "lucky" enough to catch an 8# 6oz blackmouth. The fish was caught as we turned the boat in 160 ft of water to 140 ft (downrigger ball was at 150). I was not so lucky. Over all it was a good experience and even though it was cold and wet most of the time, we had a good time. Only took a couple of pictures... forgot to take a pix of the fish so you'll just have to take Mikes word... :argh

http://www.curtisnjrotc.com/iboatnw/DSC00036.JPG

Pix below of my pole looking like it was pointing down to the rainbow:

http://www.curtisnjrotc.com/iboatnw/DSC00037.JPG

[dumluck53]

Nice pics, thanks for sharing...an 8#, eh?...uh huhhhh...right...."forgot" to take a picture...umm hmmm.... :wink:

Well... he's down to about 4 pounds now. I ate a bunch of him last night :)

Thanks again Doug, that was a great trip. His Radar is the best I've seen on a pleasure boat. It's working perfectly. You can spot seagulls sitting in the water within a couple hundred yards of the boat and see them in the air flying around you. That Raymarine is an awesome unit Doug.

Doug did catch some nice pictures of the rainbows above his pole.. but all I caught was a fish :)

[Go Aweigh2452]

yeah, well, I did not catch the state of Washington like Mike did... :oops:


I do appreciate the new 12# downrigger weight though... :argh

Yeah... he only caught his kicker. :)

Matter of fact... that was a double hook-up wasn't it Doug? At the same moment you caught the kicker... I hooked the fish if memory serves me right? 8)

[dumluck53]

Geez, Doug, I'm losing faith in ya boy! If we were a tribe, the elders would leave ya home next fishing trip to weave baskets with the ladies!

:argh

[Go Aweigh2452]

yeah, I turned the boat too hard over and my downrigger got hung up on the kicker... I did not release my line and have two lines get tangled... that is when he caught his fish and I even netted it for him... only then is when I went into the water to release the downrigger wire around my kicker prop... (he measured it while I went below to change into warm clothing...)
good thing we were allowed to keep wild caught huh?

:D

A blackmouth is a blackmouth. :)

Actually... I think this guy might have been an early springer. He was really bright in color (not as dark green as balckmouth can be) and he had sea lice. Is that normal out closer to the ocean? Maybe that's all it was.

Spud? Roy? You guys know about sea lice? My understanding has always been they're from oceanm fish only.

[Tedster]

SS is it just me or are your checks getting a bit chubby lately?! Ted :lol: :P :D :shock:

Must be you Ted. Just getting older I suppose. I'm still at 205 pounds like the last 15 years. Although the grey definitely seems to be spreading. :D

[Pegasis]

As far as I know the sea lice only says the fish has been in or near the ocean. Doesn't matter if it's a srping fish or fall fish, if it aint mature it's a Blackmouth.

But the blackmouth are resident fish though aren't they They don't leave like their sea-going cousins. My understanding was that a resident fish is a blackmouth, the returning 2 year olds from the sea are called Jacks or Springers. And, once they get to be 3rd or 4th year fish, they come back as Kings or Tyee. I've just never gotten a blackmouth with sea lice. He was decent size (and has been good eating). :)

[Pegasis]

Blackmouth are immature Chinook regardless of what season they spawn. Kings are mature Chinook.

Immature salmon in the river during spawning season, regardless of species are jacks for males and janes for females.

[Pegasis]

Forgot to mention - also doesn't matter if resident or ocean run Chinook.

Blackmouth are immature Chinook regardless of what season they spawn. Kings are mature Chinook.

Immature salmon in the river during spawning season, regardless of species are jacks for males and janes for females.

Yeah... but resident fish are blackmouths. For some reason, some native fish don't leave the Sound and make up our winter fishery. When I say "springers", I'm not talking about spawning fish, just fish returning for the spawn starting in early spring. My understanding was that these early runs are the reason we start to close April 11th and have to wait until the escapement starts making its way to the rivers.

I understand the different naming conventions. I was mainly just wondering if anyone had seen lice on a blackmouth. And if not, I was thinking this was an early springer. Greg (Greg's Custom Rods) here in Lake Stevens was kind of skeptical about our fishing trip this late in the year. he said most of the winter blackmouth are pretty depleted by now, but we might get lucky and catcha springer running early. i'll have to talk to him and ask what he meant specifically.

He was an odd lighter shade too. Almost more silvery than he should've been. He was very lightly tinted grean across the back and not near as dark as the blackmouth I've picked up out of Everett.

[Numbknots]

SS,

Ya mean you don't turn back 8#ers to grow up to be big Kings that go to Alaska?

Segulls sitting on the water huh, does sound like an awesome radar!
Glad you had fun, I sure look forward to getting back to the boat!

Tim

I was talking to a guy at the Wallace River Hatchery one day and he explained the whole "left turning" versus "right turning" fish thing. They've managed to raise fish that will instinctively turn right (clockwise) in a tank. This also means they will school in that direction. So when they hit salt, they take off to the right and north. They've also realized that by separating the "left turners" they can make a batch of fish that will be much less likely to ever leave the Sound. That's the basis for much of our resident population of blackmouth chinook here. They never do go north or out into the open ocean. (or Canadian nets)

They're pinned in the head, but not adipose clipped, so they're protected all the way up the Snohomish as native Kings if they return. He says its been so sucessful, tey hope to have a year-round blackmouth fishery here in a year or two.

He said around 80% of ALL the salmon in the Puget Sound, are hatchery nowadays. They've given up restoring wild runs in most places now. The supported fishery is just the most economical way to go. It makes that $45 license seem much cheaper when you think of it :)

[Go Aweigh2452]

So is the pin visible? I never saw a pix of that in the regulations. If they are protected (pinned) but the adipose is not clipped, they are considered wild and not keepers? Or are we all going to buy readers to see if the heads are "pinned"?

[Pegasis]

supposedly all of the hatchery fish are fin clipped, at least those from a WDF&W hatchery. Fishing groups have been pushing the tribes to do the same so only hatchery fish not fin clipped should be from hatchery boxes, usually tended by conservation groups.

[Randygh]

The pin is actually a tiny wire injected into the snout of the fish. They are invisible from the exterior. WDFW has a mobile (trailer) lab that moves from hatchery to hatchery to implant the smolts' snouts with the coded wires.

The ladies who do the pit tagging are very proficient, but it is a very monotonus job. The baby fish are anesthetized by adding an anesthetic agent to the water tank. They are grasp and gently shoved snout first into a tagging machine. The tag is automatically injected and the fish is placed in a recovery tank. Each person can do several thousand fish per day.

You'll catch one every once in awhile that got by without a clipped fin. I caught one last year in the bubble and it had it's fin. She scanned it's head and got the pin. She thenm aked if she could remove it. After I agreed, she whacked a V-shaped chunk from it's forehead. Made for an ugly fish, but she bagged that and some scales and threw it in her cooler. :)