Sekiu and the rest of Marine Area 5 opens for halibut Thursday through Sunday, May 22-25, for Memorial Day weekend. The fishery will open again May 29-31 and will be open one final day on Saturday, June 7, if enough quota remains. The Sekiu halibut fishing map above shows the prime places to fish. Traditionally the majority of anglers here drift the flat areas between the Sekiu and Hoko river mouths. A few anglers this year will anchor, and will likely do extremely well. However, anchoring here will require a strong dose of common sense. First off, anchoring in the prime drift zone won’t be wise as it would only serve to disrupt the drift of many boats and cause your fellow halibut anglers to hate you. Also, this area can get rough or have high swells. Remember, anchors should only be deployed when conditions allow. Don’t anchor during rough wind and waves. Always stay safe. Best Depths: 120 to 260 feet. One top strategy is to begin in 120 feet and drift between the two rivers. If you catch halibut during the drift repeat when you complete the drift. No fish, no worries, just move into 140 to 160 feet and try that drift depth. Continue working into deeper water if you fail to find hungry halibut. And yes, some anglers will reverse this strategy and begin in the deeper drift and move shallow, which also works. I prefer the shallow to deep approach because it is easier to fish shallow than deep. Best Baits: Try large sardine here. Sardines have lots of oil and will provide a good scent trail. Make three slices into the sardine on both sides to increase the scent coming from the bait. Herring also works well as well as squid and salmon bellies. Be sure to brine your bait to toughen it up so it stays on the hook longer. Prepare your brine two days before the season and keep your brined bait in a small six pack cooler. Keep your six pack cooler in the fridge until you leave for Sekiu. While on the boat, put a Ziploc bag filled with ice in your six pack cooler. Best Lures: Virtually any of your favorite lures should work great, especially on opening weekend when fish are more plentiful and hopefully aggressive. As always, I like FAT Squids, Z2 Squids, double skirts and jigs. When fishing in the shallows jigs might be a great choice. Try the new FAT Squid Jig Head. These jig heads turn any fully rigged soft squid into an enticing articulated jig. The jig head also enables anglers to put a plain hook on the corkscrew swivel. Add some bait to the hook and it turns into a unique “Bait Jig.” Last week I experimented with a short baitfish leader with a whole herring and attached it tot the jig head. It looked great and swam behind the jig head. I prefer attaching the mainline on the end of the jig head. These jig heads are available at Halibut.net Good luck, John
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Just two more days of halibut fishing in Neah Bay. While many anglers will head to the C closure area, Table Top, Compass Rose or elsewhere offshore, those with smaller trailer boats will want to stay on the inside. Here’s a map of the Garbage Dump. the x gets you to the spot. Once there check your depth sounder and begin your drift. The area is large, giving anglers lots of area to prospect for halibut. The area marked with * puts you on the inside middle of the drift. Either area could produce decent catches while providing a closer spot for Neah Bay halibut anglers with smaller boats. Best Bait: Herring, Sardine or Squid should do the trick this weekend. Best Lures: Lead head jigs, 12 to 24 ounce sizes. I also like the FAT Squid Jig Heads combined with a 7.5 inch FAT Squid. Spreader bars with upside down squids also work well. Bait the circle hook on the upside down squid with any of the baits listed above. Be sure to use a 12 inch 30-pound test tag line from the bottom of the spreader bar to the weight. This tag line becomes a breakaway in case your spreader bar’s weight gets snagged on the bottom. Instead of losing your entire rig, most of the time you just lose your weight. When using a spreader bar or other bait or lure, be sure to raise your gear off bottom, usually four to six feet. As the illustration shows, if a rock pile or rise on the bottom gets between your gear and the halibut, they simply won’t see your offering. Continue to maintain contact with the bottom, lowering your bait or lure to the bottom every minute or two. This makes your halibut bait or lure come alive as well as making halibut-attracting noise on the bottom. After banging the bottom with the lead a few times raise your gear off bottom again. Keeping your gear off bottom prevents snags and gives the fish a better line of sight. It also forces the halibut to commit to a more aggressive bite. When they swim off bottom to go after your offering they typically hit harder which increases hook up ratios which in turn increases the halibut angler’s catch rate. Good luck this weekend, below you’ll find the press release about the last two days at Neah Bay and La Push. John Two more days to catch halibut off the north coast of Washington OLYMPIA – Anglers will have two days this week to catch halibut off the state’s north coast before the fishery closes for the year in those waters. Fishing will be open Thursday, May 22, and Saturday, May 24, in marine areas 3 (La Push) and 4 (Neah Bay) before closing under a rule issued by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). State fishery managers expect the recreational harvest in those areas to reach the 108,030-pound area quota by the end of the last day of fishing, said Michele Culver, WDFW regional manager. Culver said halibut fishing will also close Wednesday, May 21, in the nearshore area of Marine Area 2 (Westport-Ocean Shores). The rest of that area has been closed to halibut fishing since Sunday, May 18, when the area’s 40,739-pound quota was taken by the recreational fishery. In all marine areas open to halibut fishing, there is a one-fish daily catch limit and no minimum size restriction. Anglers may possess a maximum of two fish in any form and must record their catch on a WDFW catch record card. Neah Bay, WA, USA Last weekend Pillar Point produced lots of halibut for the two to three dozen boats fishing the area. Everyone here drifts along, dragging their gear just on or above bottom. Anchoring just won’t work here because everyone else drifts. If I had my choice, I’d anchor and let the halibut come to me, but the prime drifting area would be a mess if just one halibut angler anchored. That said, be ready to drift through the prime area, reel up and power back to the top of the drift and start over. Pillar Point fishes well on either an incoming or outgoing tide, the only difference being where you begin your drift. On an outgoing tide begin your drift farther east. During an incoming tide begin to the west and watch your drift and try to stay in the 320 to 420 foot depth range. Once you learn the drift you should be able to plan and successfully drift along in 320 to 360 feet. Best baits include: Salmon bellies, herring and baby octopus. Best lures include: 7.5 inch FAT Squids, 9-inch Z2 Squids, upside down double skirts, FAT Squid Lead Head Jigs. Best methods: Spreader bars & Alaskan slider rigs. Best Launch Ramp: Olson’s Resort. Saturday, June 7th is your last chance at Washington State halibut, so be sure and get your share.
Good luck, John Sekiu, WA, USA Washington’s halibut season is just a few weeks away, and begins on May 8th on the inner waters. Yesterday, Friday March 13th I went salmon fishing on Eastern Bank for salmon. Eastern Bank sits in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and offers anglers one of the best areas to catch salmon and halibut. The bank’s sandy bottom attracts massive schools of candlefish as well as herring and other bait fish. Several good salmon fishing reports from Eastern Bank combined with calm seas made this a good choice to try. Upon arriving at the bank, we got our first line in the water, a chrome dodger with a Silver Horde #2 green spatterback Kingfisher spoon on a 40-inch leader. The first salmon hit before getting the second rod in the water. The area showed small schools of candlefish hovering on bottom as well as a few salmon working the bottom. I’ve fished Eastern Bank many times over the past few years and have always preferred fishing the southwest corner. This area attracts bait, salmon and halibut on incoming and outgoing tides. By 10:20 a.m. we had landed 10 salmon, of which only one was a hatchery keeper that measured 28 inches long. Right at 10:30, my rod that had my favorite old F4 Piscator flasher with a #2 cop car Kingfisher spoon jerked violently from the downrigger release. As soon as I grabbed the rod the fish thrashed its head, a clear indication a halibut grabbed my small spoon. No surprise there because my gear hovered within five feet off bottom, where candlefish and salmon were most active. Fighting halibut on salmon gear, especially “Canadian style” knuckle buster reels can be a vigorous challenge. As you can imagine, the halibut fought hard all the way to the top, then flattened out on the surface, where I tried to remove the barbless hook from it’s jaw.The 40 pound halibut wanted no part of me reaching toward its mouth and gave me a saltwater shower as it headed back to the depths. After the halibut going to the bottom twice, it finally tired enough for me to grab its tail and remove the hook before sending it on its way. In past years I’ve caught halibut in Canada on my birthday, March 23rd, but never earlier than that date. This is a good sign for our upcoming halibut season. Eastern Region (MA 6-10) May 8-9 May 15-16 May 21-24 May 28-30All totaled, our Friday the 13th fishing trip to Eastern Bank provided us with 13 salmon to the boat, two of which had missing adipose fins and measured well over the 22-inch minimum size limit. We also lost a nice sized salmon and released the nice sized halibut. When we first arrived at the bank the tidal flow was weak and incoming. Our best action happened during the incoming right through slack tide. When the tide turned and flowed out we stayed in the same area and continued to catch salmon, including one of the keepers. Whether fishing for salmon or halibut, Eastern Bank can provide excellent fishing on the southwest side. |
AuthorJohn Beath has created these Halibut Fishing Maps to help halibut anglers catch more fish. ArchivesCategories |