Jetty Fishing Gears & Skill
Jetty fishing is very popular in Washington state from early March to October every year. You can catch rockfish(especially black rockfish), lingcod, greenling, striped perch and redtail surf perch from the jetty. The when, where and how detail for jetty fishing can be found below in this page.
Jetty Fishing 101
This video talks about how to do jetty fishing in Washington state, include when, where and how based on my years of personal jetty fishing experience.
Jetty Fishing Show
This video recorded my jetty fishing trip of October 2022, Landed plenty of black rockfish, covered a new setup in addtion to what I talked in jetty fishing 101.
1/3oz swimbait
This is the killer swimbait for black rockfish and lingcod, I landed a lot of fish with them, all color works great.
1/8oz jighead
This is another option if the wind is too strong, you can use this jig head together with the paddle bait.
Paddle bait
Smaller paddle bait to attrack both small and big rockfish, the glow in dark body helps a lot in noisy water.
Jetty Fishing Guidance
I wrote below information based on my jetty fishing experience from Washington state, the fishing gears and technique part should also apply to Oregon state. Please be aware, jetty fishing can be very dangerous if the condition is not very good, those rocks are super slippery when wet, you will need a pair of solid shoes to hold the ground. And remember, do not ever step on the wet seaweed, your bone will complain otherwise.
- When: For most of the time, I do jetty fishing in Washington state marine area 2, which opens from the second Saturday in march to third Saturday in october, for other areas, please refer to WDFW rules at here. From my own experience, August is the best month for jetty fishing in Washington state. If I can find a day with the wind less than 10mph while the wave is less than 6ft, and it's not raining, I will jump into my car and drive to the jetty. Talking about the time range, slack tide would be ideal for jetty fishing, if you miss that window, then find the incoming tide.
- Where: There are many place you can do jetty fishing in Washington state, for most of the time, I am fishing from Westport jetty or Ocean shores jetty. If you are fishing from Westport jetty, you want to face north. If you are fishing from Ocean shores jetty, you want to face south. The cape disappointment jetty and Neah bay jetty are also very popular for jetty fishing. If you are not very confident about your balance skill, then cape disappoinment jetty might be easier for you to handle. For the Neah bay jetty, you need to pay around 15 dollars to get in, but it provides awesome fishing opportunity.
- Gears: I prefer my 9ft6 ML spinning rod, cause it's quite light, and you don't feel tired even after a full day of jigging, but a big lingcod might break that rod easily, I would say a medium rod which is longer than 9ft is a better choice. For the reel, I am using a 3000 reel, but I would say 4000 reel would be a better choice. Talking about the line, I always use 40 lb main line and 15lb lead line. For the bait, if you are targetting for rockfish and lingcod, use the swimbait I listed above, and I aslo use a 3/4oz or 1/2oz slip weight on my main line. If you are targgeting for the perch and greenling, just use raw shrimp with high low rig.
- How: For rockfish and lingcod, they love to chase small fish, that's why I prefer swimbait over shrimp for them. I usually cast my bait as far as I can, wait for a few seconds to let the bait sink to the bottom before reeling in slowly. And I will shake the rod tip every 5 to 10 seconds when reeling so that the swimbait acts as an injured fish. Rockfish and lingcod won't be able to reject this movement, they will strike the swimbait like crazy, and you won't miss that bite, set the hook once you feel that strong bite and reel in as fast as you can, or they will drag the bait into rocks; For perch and greenling, it's much easier, you just throw the hookset as far as you can, keep the line tight and wait for the bait, they usually just swallow the shrimp with the hook.
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