Early Autumn Trolling for Coho at Possession Bar

Yesterday my brave and loyal fishing buddy Dave and I set out to catch some coho off Possession Point. He had caught all the fish last weekend and kindly let me have one pink. I was determined not to let him beat me again. I realized later that the reason he did so much better than me was that he had time to research the fishery, while I had been buried in work. I went to a lot of trouble this week to set up the right tackle, brine some herring for bait, and to know where and at what speed to troll. I had high hopes.

Most boaters only care about the water 20 feet below their keel; if they can’t hit it then they don’t worry about it. Fishermen, however, are keenly interested in the underwater topography of the areas they fish. So-called “Possession Bar” is a complex underwater landscape of cliffs and valleys just south of Possession Point, the southern tip of Whidbey Island. Incoming tides have only two places to get around Whidbey Island: Deception Pass and Possession Point, and they are some 50 miles away from each other. This makes Possession a place where strong tidal currents can really rip, which very much affects the behavior of fish. It’s a popular place to fish for lingcod in the spring and salmon all summer and fall. That day was an ebb tide (going out), so we decided that we would fish the faraway west side of the bar. I think it was the farthest I had ever gone from Everett before.

Washington fishing rules are byzantine and constantly changing. Our fisheries are actively managed, so the rules can change the night before your trip. Because of that, you have to be on top of your email. South of Possession Point is Marine Area 9, where you are allowed to catch two coho but they must both be hatchery fish. North of that is Area 8-2, where you are only allowed one coho but it can be wild. In both areas you are allowed two salmon each, which means that if you fish 8-2 you have to settle for a pink. Got all that? We agreed that we would fish Area 9, take only coho, and not settle for pinks if there are any still left. At the hatchery they clip a fin off each fish (called the adipose fin), so that you can easily tell them from the wild ones.

We met at 7:00 a.m. but got a late start because of a small launching mishap plus a random inspection by Everett Police at the dock. I let Dave drive on the way out, and it took us most of an hour to get there. It was sunny and calm, but a bit cold. We saw the familiar sea lions on the Possession Point buoy, and there was a fog bank on the southwest side of the island. One of the first things we did when we got there was to start the kicker motor. We decided to increase our trolling speed to 3.5 to 4 mph. However, we found that even at wide open throttle, it could only drive us at 3.3. Although it’s very quiet at idle (sockeye) speed, it’s quite loud when it’s fully open. Normally it can drive us up to 5 mph, but it turns out the downriggers add a significant amount of drag which really slows us down. We reluctantly shut it off and decided to troll on the main. In addition to being much quieter, it also allowed us to steer from the helm, where we could conveniently watch the navigation chart and the fish finder. However, it really racks up the main engine hours fast.

It’s been only very recently in human history that people started using GPS-enabled electronics to fish, but they seem so essential now that I wonder how anybody ever fished without them. Using the fish finder on the boat and the detailed underwater charts on my phone, we scoured every inch of that bar over the course of the day. There were probably 100 other boats fishing the same area. We mostly stayed on the edge of the crowd and out of the mosh pit, but I did have to blow my can horn at one guy who was staring at his screen too much and not looking outside the boat. In the midst of it all, a big tug boat just plowed its way right through the middle.

The morning was very slow. Dave did manage to hook one, but I unfortunately failed to net it and it got away. After that, we learned to reduce speed when trying to net, since it’s really hard to move the net around in the water when you’re trolling that fast. Shortly afterwards, the steel cable on my downrigger got a kink in it and tangled itself tightly underneath of its reel. This is the third time this has happened. Dave volunteered to untangle it, I’m sure it took him more than half an hour. Right after he fixed it, it happened all over again. Later in the day it happened to his own downrigger. This was way more fun than fishing… I think I’m done with manual downriggers.

I would have never thought that I’d be able to spend six hours at a time on a boat, but now I do it regularly. However, I can only do it if I don’t eat or drink much all day, and by the time I’m done I don’t feel well. Because of this, we decided to include a pit stop. When I’m crabbing I always stop in at Langley, but Possession Point is far away from there. I didn’t used to think there was any place to stop nearby, but I recently learned that there’s a small waterfront park with a boat launch just north of the point. When we arrived, however, we found that the tide was low enough that there was barely room at the floating dock for one boat, and it was really tight. After waiting for a couple to finish pulling their boat out, we gingerly approached and Dave hopped out. There was so little water that I actually bumped the skeg on the bottom of my outboard on the ramp below. The short break was much appreciated though, and afterwards we felt rejuvenated.

After lunch we quickly got back to fishing and we started getting a lot more hits. Not long after lunch, Dave managed to finally land a coho. It was a gorgeous early autumn day, and the water was quite glassy and smooth. The sun finally warmed up and we were able to doff our jackets. Dave mentioned that trolling is serene. A large Coast Guard cutter started approaching us from behind, but suddenly stopped. Five minutes later, a bright orange Zodiac full of orange-clad crew approached the cutter at high speed. The cutter retrieved the boat and crew, and then continued on its way.

By the end of the day, Dave and I had both lost two fish that slipped off, and both of us had two “shakers”, which are small juvenile fish which aren’t worth keeping but prevent other fish from latching on to your lure. You don’t see them tug on the line, and you only notice them when you occasionally pull up your gear to reset. For the second Saturday in a row, I got skunked. After a full seven hours on the water, I felt a bit dejected that I caught no keepers all day. Dave took his coho home and had it cooked up before I even had the boat put away. He deserved it after all that time spent untangling downrigger cables. Still, even without a catch it was a pleasant day on the water, and more experience was gained.