Fishing Updates

July 23, 2007

The catch for the week was quite typical of the last week of July.  The weather was mild and the tides were low, both factors contribute to larger catches.  There are still a few kings in the area and we caught 4 during the week, one of which weighed in at 25 pounds.

Silvers actually tapered off from the previous week.  We took 153 this week compared with 177 the previous week.  They appear to be in separated schools and not high in abundance.  The fishery in the outside waters remains strong which give us hope that our numbers will increase significantly as the begin moving into our area.

Chums are still surprisingly strong for this later in the summer.  I mentioned before that Fish and Game believes the waters are slightly cooler than normal and this is delaying all the salmon runs.  This seems to be the case for our area, but fortunately both the chum and pink runs are so strong that there are plenty of fish to catch.  

Pinks are going off the charts.  We caught 1330 this past week and many guests had limited in the first couple of hours each morning.  The large number of pinks undoubtedly has an impact on the silver catch simply because the pinks are picking off the bait before the silvers can get to it.  We expect the pink run to stay strong, with bright fish, for several more weeks.

Low tide exchange volume equals increased halibut catches.  I've look at our data for this summer in terms of average halibut catch versus average height of tide change.  As expected, when there is a lot of tide change the halibut catch goes down.  However, we are becoming better at fishing the tide changes and locating areas with less tidal influence.  We had small tide changes last week and the halibut catch jumped from 300 the previous week to 559 this past week.

Bottom line: fishing is outstanding.

— Doc

Previous Reports:

• June 5, 2007
• June 11, 2007
• June 18, 2007
• June 25, 2007
• July 2, 2007
• July 9, 2007
• July 16, 2007
• 2006 Fishing Season
• 2005 Fishing Season