San Juan Islands Blackmouth

Winter blackmouth fishing in Marine Area 7 (San Juan Islands) has been quite good since the opening on January 1st. We have been hearing and seeing some very nice catches coming out of this area. Most of our customers fishing here have been seeing good numbers of fish in the 7 -14 pound range with a few in the upper teens. The best thing we have heard is that there is not the number of sub legal fish that we are seeing in our section of the Sound. Which was the driver for closing areas 8-1, 8-2 and 9. Though Marine Area 10 (Seattle - Bremerton) has remained open we are still seeing huge numbers of shakers being caught. It has been a wonder why WDFW has not closed this area  as the impacks have got to be extremely high.

Most of the guys fishing the Islands have been either fishing small spoons such as 3.0 Kingfisher Spoons or smaller Sardine model hoochies behind a rotating flasher such as a Hot Spot or Gibbs. Small orange or yellow pack herring or small anchovies fished in a helment has also accounted for good catches. With large numbers of smaller bait in the San Juans a smaller bait matches the hatch.