Puget Sound

5 Weight said:
Since SRC fishing is usually good where some source of fresh water(creek,river,stormwater drainage,etc),empties into the salt I speculated it might have something to do with parasites. A few years back I ran into a Coastal Cutthrout Coalition guy in a local fly shop and posed the question as to fresh water affecting sea lice. He said definitely and that they had experimented putting lice ridden Cutts in a tank of fresh water. He stated within 15 minutes the sea lice were no more.
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Thats interesting. I was told long ago a way for determining how long a fish had been in the river was by sealice. If the sealice still had their long tails the fish had only been in the freshwater a day or two. If the sealice had lost their tail it had been in the river a week or two. No idea if that info is accurate
 
Burt Dagger said:
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Cool debris line to fish today. I made the mistake of starting my day with a gurgler. Several slash-and-missed, and then the fishing went cold for hours. Gurgler should only come out once the catching has already occurred.
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At 1st casual glance that blowdown looks like a predatory fish on a log.

Look at the roots with the pic on its side, it looks like the lower leg and webbed foot of a dinosaur 🦕
 
the_chemist said:
Thats interesting. I was told long ago a way for determining how long a fish had been in the river was by sealice. If the sealice still had their long tails the fish had only been in the freshwater a day or two. If the sealice had lost their tail it had been in the river a week or two. No idea if that info is accurate
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Maybe the chunky argulid parasites react differently to freshwater entry than the more common copepod type of sea lice we typically see on salmon?
 
5 Weight said:
Since SRC fishing is usually good where some source of fresh water(creek,river,stormwater drainage,etc),empties into the salt I speculated it might have something to do with parasites.
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Are you thinking where freshwater enters the sound tends to lead to higher numbers of parasite infected fish in those areas?
Thanks
SF
 
Started off the afternoon a bit slow but after about an hour I connected with this beautiful chrome cutty.
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He spit up this 3-4” herring in my net. Time to tie some bigger flies!
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I was reeling in to call it a day and about halfway in I had a bite like a freight train. He pulled some drag and made a few jumps before I brought to the net what is I’m pretty sure my biggest cutthroat ever. What a way to end the day!
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KFCDAVE said:
Started off the afternoon a bit slow but after about an hour I connected with this beautiful chrome cutty.
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He spit up this 3-4” herring in my net. Time to tie some bigger flies!
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I was reeling in to call it a day and about halfway in I had a bite like a freight train. He pulled some drag and made a few jumps before I brought to the net what is I’m pretty sure my biggest cutthroat ever. What a way to end the day!
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Nice! The biggest fish I caught yesterday puked up a giant herring as well.

Edit: Forgot because it was an easy day to forget. I went out today with the main target being chum. First two spots had few fish. Almost not worth fishing though I gave it a shot. Running between spots, I hit a couple SRC spots that usually produce but nobody was home except this little guy.

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Hit the final chum spot late in the day. Fished it for about 1.5 hours. Some fish home, hooked a few, did not land any. Oh well, should have just went SRC fishing like yesterday. It was a nice day to have off and go for a boat ride though.
 
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A day of very specific firsts- First decent size cutthroat hooked on a fly, and first cutthroat hooked on a fly at my local beach!

Wasn't planning to fish but saw the gorgeous weather and could not resist. Walked down to my local beach and started out just offhand my typical incoming tide spot (Where I usually fish). I have been fishing poppers lately, I've struggled to find fish and getting a fish on the line is more important to me than a fish in my hand, and it's a technique I have put off trying for years.

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I walked down the beach after seeing a fish jump right at my second choice spot where I figured the out going tide would produce a nice build up of bait based off current movement. A person throwing a stick in for their dog to chase and plenty of harbor seals made me think my chances were slim. After some time casting, walking down the beach chasing the fish as they (Or it) jumped, I suddenly felt tension on my line, and saw a beautiful 12ish inch cutthroat leap into the air, coming unbuttoned right after. A few more casts were able to produce a missed strike, with the fish boiling next to the fly, but no take. I'm okay with it, as we all know I need a new landing net anyways.

Close to sunset I decided to check out the creek for any chum, found one very sad looking fellow who I hope was washed out by the rains after spawning, and not a prespawn mortality. It reminded me of the time I tried to cross the creek with a plank that had been put in place and fell in right next to two very beat up looking chum that didn't seem to be able to cross the culvert to spawn, and another time I watched a chum enter the creek mouth at the sound.

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Saw this gorgeous blue heron on my way back.

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I cropped the Puget Sound out of this photo, but the northern lights were out over my house in the direction of the sound.

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All in all a blessed evening. Forgive the vent but very much needed after starting my day at 5:30 in the morning listening to coworkers using racial and homophobic slurs.
 
After two straight days of yard work, leaves be damned and I needed to get out. Great day weather wise.
Some action, but not great. Here is the best fish of the day. Lots of litter coming in on the recent king tides.
SF
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Went to the local this morning. Very last minute and unplanned. Fished for about 40 minutes and swapped around 3 flies with no luck. A fish presented itself down the beach so I moved in. Still nothing. I then remembered I had some flies Jeff Delia gave me a few weeks ago so I tried one of those. Boom. Caught two back to back with the second being the biggest around 12-13".

Good enough for me and not bad for showing up with little to no hope.

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Hit the sound with @Kfish today looking for SRC. We zipped around to a few spots with the boat. Hooked a lot, lost some and landed a solid number of fish. Fish were not super aggressive today even with the good incoming tide. We watched a number of fish slowly follow our flies casually nipping at them. Deployed the stop and pop pink salmon method a couple times with success. Always fun being able to observe their behavior from a boat. SRC are often super aggressive so watching that was interesting. Even caught a couple of rezzies…I think?? It was basically still dark and the one pic I took is pretty damn blurry.

Only used two flies all day. I know your proud of me for that @Stonedfish …

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Semper_Fly said:
Went to the local this morning. Very last minute and unplanned. Fished for about 40 minutes and swapped around 3 flies with no luck. A fish presented itself down the beach so I moved in. Still nothing. I then remembered I had some flies Jeff Delia gave me a few weeks ago so I tried one of those. Boom. Caught two back to back with the second being the biggest around 12-13".

Good enough for me and not bad for showing up with little to no hope.

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I’ll drop by tomorrow to see if I can get any you missed!
 
Fun day, fish were spread out all over. Some seemingly random singles here and there but there were some pods that’s bunched up in certain spots and we even managed a double of solid fish.
Saw one nice fish that jumped frantically several times and observed it scratching its side on the bottom, we think it was trying to scrape off parasites. Very interesting, never seen that before.


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Kfish said:
Quick 2hr squidding session this morning, not too shabby for my first time ever. Thanks to @Northern for the fine kayak choice recommendation.

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I chase squid every year from my kayak, I think I recognize the spot where you were out. For those interested in trying squid fishing from a kayak check out this excellent primer from a fishing buddy of mine LINK HERE, or click where it says "Watch on Youtube" below, somehow embeded youtube video doesn't work:

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Hit the local for a couple hours on the incoming today! Pretty cool to see how the fish shift depending on tide. Day started great at the walk, seeing some very large porpoises in the distance surfacing. I wondered if they were Orcas but despite the unusually large size they did not have fins that resembled Orca fins. I wonder if they were Dalls. Hoped to throw Deila Squid style patterns but forgot to pack them! Started out with a Miyawaki popper after seeing one jump and had a nice grab. More casts didn't seem to attract fish, so I decided to try something I never did- Reverse spiders. Almost instant success- Two back to back hookups, but both got off as soon as I tried to strip set. I wish I had thrown the sparser spider I had with a larger hook first. I tried it but no luck. Was quiet after these two.

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I attempted to throw the spiders on an intermediate line as well, but did not have the same success. I switched to a clouser pattern I had tied, but it got no attention. By then I had a family event to attend to and the wind had picked up. I have spent a lot of time lately casting non shooting head style lines, whether it be a full sinking SA Type 7 line from a boat or the RIO Gold floating line for topwater patterns or dry flies on a river, and honestly, I think I am a far better caster for it and wish I took the advice of posters on here to do that before shooting heads. I was able to cast 50-70' with ease today, and while I am sure learning to use stronger winds to my advantage while casting helped a lot, I am also a genuinely better caster. After putting my shooting head intermediate on, I messed up a bunch of casts because I unknowingly had casted most of my desired line out with just one false cast, instead of messing around with 4 or 5 casts like I used to. Even my RIO Gold only needed 2-4 false casts to get very good amounts of line out. Since I was doing so well, I decided to try to teach the GF some casting. We made...some progress. But I think it would be easier if we started out on some grass and I had another rod for us to practice casting together with. She likes a lot of parts of fishing, but doesn't love the high mortality of gear fishing. I might be able to get her to start coming with me, maybe with a Popper that has the hook cut off lol.

All in all great day. Saw some chum carcasses and a bald eagle too. Hope I continue getting out of work on time so I can enjoy last light fishing and maybe end the month hooking one. Kind of a tough choice between finding good hood canal beaches on the weekend or having more time to master my local beach at its peak season. I believe yall when you say there’s a whole lot more fish at some beaches over there but I’ve yet to find the fruitful ones just yet
 
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