I fished October 13th with Barney Rubble, and we hooked 30 plus fish on jigs at the 60 foot depth on Entrance Reef. We continued our losing the big fish, releasing the smaller undersized fish trend, but had a fabulous day with many laughs in the beautiful warmth. I fished Entrance Reef on Sunday October 16th with the Cabezon, and again it was sunny, warm, with herring bait schools everywhere. The jigging was non stop, although the majority of the fish were juvenile Coho and undersized 3 to 5 pound Chinook. We drifted over one huge bait school, and landed and kept 3 gorgeous hatchery Coho, losing two others beside the boat. This was kind of like winning the lottery, as only about 10% of our Coho are fin clipped. The last time the Cabby and I hooked numbers of Coho, we boated 11, and only kept one hatchery fish. We released one small legal Chinook about 7 pounds, and came home very happy. This is really reminding me of the proverbial “good old days”, when we went fishing on Halloween, and jigged a bunch of Coho. I really do think the halving of the commercial herring harvest is hugely benefitting the fish. It may be the reason there are so many Humpback Whales here, also, as they are krill and herring feeders.
Good fishing!