I went to "The Bait Box" beach. For those that are unfamiliar with this area, Possession Bait Company has a commercial bait company on the east side of the point where you can purchase live herring, either in person or from your boat. I remember frequently visiting this place when I was just a wee lad and going there brought back lots of memories with Grandpa and Dad. My Dad and the Cooper family, who owns the company, grew up together thus many days spent on their beach.
Back to the fishing part, the beach that the bait box occupies is privately owned but free to the public to fish. This isn't your elbow to elbow, chuck your junk everywhere and as far as you can, combat beach. You will get scolded if getting out of line, standing in the water, or throwing anything but a float and herring setup so if you’re looking for a free for all, this is not the place and head up to South Whidbey State Park, Bush Point or Fort Casey if that's your fancy.
Everyone here throws herring under a float. Either a fixed float or sliding float with a short leader and a double hook setup and you're good to go. Purchase your herring 1/2 dozen at a time ($3 1/2 dozen or $6/dozen) and you’re in business. These fish school and swim closer to the beach then one would imagine, no need to throw your setup out into the middle of the channel. Saturday morning saw lots of action. I witnessed around a dozen fish caught, one by yours truly, and plenty lost including one from my brother which did a double back flip routine before he even realized his float was under.
One last note, fishing with people on the island can be “interesting” to say the least. Crossover vehicles and Subaru Foresters covered in Obama, upside down rainbow triangles, annoying democratic stickers driven by buzz cut, hairy arm-pitted women are frequent along with fanny pack toting computer geek tourists that require help landing their 4 pound humpy, that want to chat your ear off about how to fish “their way” with their yellow Eagle Claw rod and plastic Mitchell spinning rod can be nerve racking and darn right cause compulsive suicidal or mass murderous thoughts… I would much rather get yelled at and hear “Nicky do this” or “Nicky are you new?!” in Big Red by Nelly than subside to that again!
Oh, and while I had enough of those shenanigans by 10am Sunday and went home with nothing to show (very slow, 3 fish caught), my g/f was out in a friends boat in which they landed 5, yes 5 limits of Coho by 2pm, in which she brought her proudly caught and reeled in limit home for me to clean as I finished mowing the lawn and doing laundry. Something is wrong here…
