Washington Island Fishing/Lodging

[thao25]

Hi All!

I plan on hitting that area next weekend Oct 20-21st. First time in the area and was wondering does everyone take the ferry ride when fishing the island or is riding the boat from Gills Rock doable? Depending on the conditions I am assuming going from Gills will be fine? Also are there any lodging recommendations in that area? Thanks!

I'll be in a Ranger Z521 w/ 250hp Yamaha SHO with 2 power poles, come say "hi" if your in the area!

[willwork4fish]

I'll be up there Thursday to Sunday. We stay on the island so we take the ferry. $120 or so round trip for truck and boat. 20+ mph from south, I wouldn't run from gills rock myself, gets bad. Whole north side should be fine though.

[basscat tyler]

Has the blade bait bite started up there yet?

[willwork4fish]

I'll find out in a couple of days. My guess is that we'll catch a few on silver buddies but the water temp is still 59, kinda warm. Little worried that the water temps are going to screw things up...usually lower 50's this time of year.

[thao25]

Update? Decided not to head up last weekend

[willwork4fish]

Eh, winds were pretty big (20+) and fishing was tough, water was still pretty warm (57deg). We were pretty much stuck on the north side of the island the whole time, not that it's a bad area I've done very well there in the past. I fished the west side for a couple of hours on Friday before the rollers made it unmanageable. I did fish Rock Island too but didn't find much going on there. I managed 10-12 fish per day with nothing really huge, the guys I was with struggled even more with like 3-6 fish per day. My biggest was 4.3lbs. All my fish were caught on a DS or an Arig. There were a number of guys out fishing with suckers and they were talking about 20-25 fish days but that was for 3 or 4 guys in a boat. Heard of a few fish over 5lbs caught but not many. I think the water still being pretty warm along with not being able to check multiple areas limited our success.

[thao25]

Thanks for the update!

[bass-o-maticjm]

Anyone still fishing over there, or when do guys quit fishing? Mid November? Need to live vicariously, so if anyone is still at it, let's hear!