Selective fishing for natives

[salmonlips]

I'm fairly new to the board so bear with me if you can. Went out of Garibaldi yesterday, crossing the bar at about 8:00. Wished I'd have seen the Garibaldi post before today I'd have tried earlier and gone out farther. We went out to about 150' of water off of twin rocks and were immediately into fish. The first 3 had too many fins. The next two we lost. Spent the rest of the day finding a fish here or there. All told, we caught 6 fish, lost or missed about the same for two people and didn't bring one home. Is this typical of what you guys are seeing out there. The ODFW checker said the catch rate was less than a fish per rod on Saturday. Is it possible that what i'm using or depth etc. is targeting natives. Most fish came off of one rod fished 35' deep on a downrigger, plug cut blue herring and a medium sized chrome herring dodger. Switched to an orange hootchie and had a few fish as well. The one finless fish we saw came off a rod fishing a pink lady diver, same dodger, same plug cut. Even with the frustration, it was a great day till afternoon and then the ocean beat us up pretty good.

[Hookset]

At least you made it out fishing, and had some action. I'm not as fortunate yet and looking forward to this coming weekend.

Off hand, from my previous experience, I'd say you were fishing to deep for silvers. Are you sure some of these fish weren't chinooks instead?

For silvers, I'd use divers only from 8 to 25 pulls depending on sun, time of day and water temp. I like lots of action and flash for silvers. Last year I was caught without any divers and used spreaders and lead to limit with just herring. I like to use green or red label whole herring behind a fish flash flasher or size O dodger. Or, hootchie and O size dodger. This year I'm going to try some spoons. I know a charter boat in Newport only fished spoons and limits their customers.

If your into fish and constantly getting bites, almost anything and everything will work. Otherwise, you need some flash and movement to locate fish, or actually, for the fish to locate you.

I'm sure others who have been fishing recently could shed some current light on what's working.

As they say, to the top.

best of luck,

Gregg