I fished the Narrows last wednesday, thursday and today.
Tuesday's tide was a -1.6 low at 1pm. I was on the water at 10am and fished
to near slack. The water was filled with small migrating salmon - my guess,
chum, I saw some herring, something that looked like small trout, and other
edibles (no candlefish). I walked the beach and fished the points where the
outgoing tide ran tight along the beach. I cast my popper and immediately
raised a good-sized fish that didn't strike. I threw out a few more casts
without result before switching to a slimeline and an unweighted chartreuse
streamer. It wasn't long before I was into my first fish - a marked coho
between 3 and 5 pounds. For the next couple hours, I walked up and down the
beach hitting fish that were all clones of the first fish. I ended up with
six to hand, a whole bunch of hits and misses, and twice as many long
releases. The most interesting thing about these fish was that, with all
the heavy feeding, they weren't showing themselves. Very seldom were there
any jumpers and only once did I see any slashing and crashing.
On wednesday, I got Blair Alexander, from Kaufmann's Seattle store, to join
me. I must be getting to be a good guide, because I put him onto a spot
where he caught three fish before I had my first strike. I was upbeach from
him and saw the aerial show his first fish put on. He said it was a good,
solid 24 inches. I forgot to ask him, but I figured it might have been a
blackmouth because it was so hot. Later, as the tide slackened, I had two
shots at a fish that looked as big as my leg. It had chased some fish onto
the beach a short cast downtide of me. On my second cast to it, I got hit
by a silver of 18 inches, my smallest one of the morning. For the record,
Blair caught five, I had three and, down the beach, Earl Harper, a fellow
listserve member, picked up three.
Today, I was on the beach at 11:30am, with a low slack of .3 at 4pm. The
tide was running hard and tight, but it was coming down from only 8.4'. It
was feeling like there would soon be less fish onshore and that soon, they
would be out beyond casting range. Between 11:45 and 12 noon, I had three
fish on and landed two of them. They were the only fish I hooked today.
They were both marked silvers and the smallest fish of the past three days.
I continued to fish up and down the beach and didn't get any action from
noon to 2pm.
