Puget Sound

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Convinced myself I could fish in this. Actually managed several nice casts off. Just had to haul extra hard on the backcast to deal with the 20kt wind. Unfortunately the waves blew my line all over the place and it wasn’t practical. The risk of getting knocked over by 3’ waves didn’t encourage me either.
 
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Convinced myself I could fish in this. Actually managed several nice casts off. Just had to haul extra hard on the backcast to deal with the 20kt wind. Unfortunately the waves blew my line all over the place and it wasn’t practical. The risk of getting knocked over by 3’ waves didn’t encourage me either.
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Convinced myself I could fish in this. Actually managed several nice casts off. Just had to haul extra hard on the backcast to deal with the 20kt wind. Unfortunately the waves blew my line all over the place and it wasn’t practical. The risk of getting knocked over by 3’ waves didn’t encourage me either.
Did you spot any dimpling or see any fry?🙃🙂😂
 
Tried fishing my local beach from the boat for a little bit. Couldn't really get as close to shore as I would've liked without the depth decreasing drastically every second and I didn't want to risk beaching the boat. I saw a beach angler, by any chance was it one of you guys?
 
Hit the South Sound on Thursday before the sun and wind picked up for the weekend. I fished a few hours from a beach park in the morning and caught a 14" in the first few casts and lost another. Then met up with my dad to take his boat out for the first time since January. We put in at Boston Harbor around 11am and went out in search of SRCs. It wasn't lights out, but we found action in a few of the usual spots. 17 to the net almost all on chum fry imitations on intermediate lines. We fished the outgoing tide and with a -2.0' low tide it was interesting to see all of the structure that is normally hidden.

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A few of the chum fry flies that were working well. I believe I originally found these patterns in Puget Sound Fly Shop. I only had 3 of each tied up but we went through all of those and a few more of my dad's. Tied up a half dozen of each today to restock the flybox.
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Good luck to anyone who gets out for lings on the opener today.
Went for a walk after my initial post and it looks like a few folks got out today.
SF

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That was fun! I only caught 1 ling but it was a blue one which was cool. Bordering on legal but the rough measurement was not there so it swam free. Fly rod only produced rock fish and the blackmouth Lou mentioned. Took a ling/tiger musky fly in 22 feet of water on a bright sunny day. Go figure. Thought I had a big ling on and then it proceeded to jump three times. What the hell is that….oh. That’s odd..ha.

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That was fun! I only caught 1 ling but it was a blue one which was cool. Bordering on legal but the rough measurement was not there so it swam free. Fly rod only produced rock fish and the blackmouth Lou mentioned. Took a ling/tiger musky fly in 22 feet of water on a bright sunny day. Go figure. Thought I had a big ling on and then it proceeded to jump three times. What the hell is that….oh. That’s odd..ha.

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Ok, you're leading the best by-catches...by a lot, so far this year. 😁 🤘
 
All I have to show for my Lingcod opening day. I tried my fishes field guide jutsu but still could not identify this rockfish and flounder species. Any thoughts? I am leaning towards English Sole and Quillback/Copper Hybrid rockfish

I would need to see more of the anterior portion of the rockfish for a better guess but my first thought when I saw the image was quillback. I am not sure about the flatfish.
 
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All I have to show for my Lingcod opening day. I tried my fishes field guide jutsu but still could not identify this rockfish and flounder species. Any thoughts? I am leaning towards English Sole and Quillback/Copper Hybrid rockfish
Jeez, Atlantic Salmon and Salmo salar!
English soles are more elongated. Sand dabs are left-eyed and the one in the picture is right-eyed, it looks like a rock sole to me. The rockfish seems like a quillback, but hard to tell since the half back of the fish is underwater so missing a couple of ID traits (saddle marks for quillback, long clear line running to the tail from the back half or 2/3rds of fish for coppers).
 
The flat might be a butter sole, rock sole has a higher arch in the lateral line over the pectoral.

The rockfish…. Who the f*** knows? All the ID guides have pictures taken off the coast, where they are different to the fish in the sound. The fish in the sound are genetically isolated from coastal fish, and might all be hybrids anyway!

Milton Love probably knows. Send the picture to him!

 
The flat might be a butter sole, rock sole has a higher arch in the lateral line over the pectoral.

The rockfish…. Who the f*** knows? All the ID guides have pictures taken off the coast, where they are different to the fish in the sound. The fish in the sound are genetically isolated from coastal fish, and might all be hybrids anyway!

Milton Love probably knows. Send the picture to him!

Oh dude, the intro on that page is a gem.

A suggestion for the rockfish ID? Reach out to @Nick Clayton for help. With his knowledge of the sound, should be easy.
 
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