Fresh Herring

[racfish]

Anybody been seeing fresh herring yet? Ive been looking and not finding live or fresh bait. Anyone know of any bait house that might. Mukilteo had it for years. I heard they do not sell it anymore?

[Mordalphus]

Probably because it's so easy to catch them?

Gamakatsu Sabiki rig, size 5, or 4 dropped into a school of Herring with get you 9 Herring every time you reel up.

Unless you can't find a school of them, of course...

[G-Man]

Not sure what you plan to use the herring for, but you can always get fresh smelt at most all of the Uwajimaya stores. Another little tip, they carry fresh squid as well and both cost less than what you'd pay for equal frozen packages of bait. Another untapped resource is Mutual Fish, it might pay to give them a call and see if they have any.

[racfish]

Im kinda an olde fashioned guy. When I use a hoochie I use a herring filet under my squid.Ive tried smelly jelly with lil success.Also if Im mooching I like a cut plug.I know that alot of folks like the new (no bait) fishing but I like herring over smelt. I can get smelt fresh anytime. Ive jigged the herring balls before but Id rather have the bait with me before I start just in case theres lil to no bait around.This is mainly for Kings and Coho. Pinks I use pink. hahaha

[G-Man]

For fresh herring to cutplug, I think you are SOL in the Seattle area. I'm seeing more people jig their own herring and bring brine along to process them asap for future use. I'll use a multitude of different bait strips with my hoochies from shrimp to squid and even sardine. Herring is a pain to keep on the hook, especially moving at coho speeds.

[obryan214]

pt. defiance boathouse in tacoma and narrows marina too. its also in tacoma.

[The Quadfather]

Ralphie sir,

I don't know exactly if you are talking about live herring, or what you consider even to be fresh. When I was growing up, there was Bud's bait, at the Edmonds marina. They sold live herring, and then I think they zapped them with electricity or something, and suddenly they became legal dead herring, lol. But that's another story...

I wanted to say that this last weekend, I was at the shilshole launch. There was a guy selling, "Fresh herring" He was set up where the fish checker sits in the chair. Anyway... something to check out if you are driving through Ballard.

[racfish]

Live herring is ideal and optimun. We used a 1/2 banana weight with the 3-4' leader and a single hook. run the hook in the tail of the herring let it go and free spool it. This is a crack of dawn fishery for kings which feed on the top early mornings. It was one of those things we did when the hake are biting. We would catch alot of hake but thats changing leaders every 5 mins.So we fished the top water.I use herring cuz thats what I always have used. I tried squid and caught alot of shakers. I also carry my brine solution with me with frozen herring defrosted and cut into plugs. The brine firms up the herring nicely. Im just so used to buying my herring every morning that I used it for bait. Theres nothing like the smell herring does for your hands 3 days later. Hahaha.I work a few blocks from any number of excellent fish houses. Uwajimaya,Mutual, Lams Seafood, HoHo market etc....I'll check out the smelt situation. Up in Utsalady the smelt nets are catching plenty of the saltwater variety. I traded with on of the smelt guys for smelt . I ate them.

[kodacachers]

Buds in Edmonds still has them. He'll dip them out right there. I was there Monday. Kind of small but couldn't be fresher.

[racfish]

Thanks all. Buds it is. Everything I like doing has a Bud in it. LOL