Sunrise 8-22-07

TCarter · Post by **TCarter** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:53 pm

Had a good dive at Sunrise yesterday on the evening slack. Nice solid hour of zero current. Not bad viz, maybe 15-20 feet with some small blobs of crud in the water. Saw the usual proliferation of Sunrise life - gpo and red octo's, wolfies, several sturgeon poachers, and lots of ratfish. Kinda looked like a ratfish convention down there.

Unfortunately, we also saw a proliferation of broken off fishing gear on the bottom (there's a downrigger ball lying at about 40' if anyone wants it), and when we surfaced there was a boat trolling right through the place. I was under the impression that area is supposed to be a no-fishing zone. Does anyone know if that's a fact?

cardiver · Post by **cardiver** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:58 pm

I was under that assumption also. I was told a long time ago that it was a marine preserve.

Shawn · Post by **Shawn** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 6:16 pm

It's off limits to fishing of any variety other than trolling for salmon. The laws protect the species most likely to actually stay in the area. Migrating King and Coho salmon are just passing through hence the allowance.

Plus... It says right on the sign you walked by to get to the dive that only salmon trolling is allowed.

It's a dual purpose dive site for me. I call that dive my home dive and I catch alot of salmon trolling off of the wall and just south of the grey house.

Shawn

Shawn · Post by **Shawn** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 6:19 pm

Hey Ron you want to do Sunrise sometime in the PM next week? We can hit the Tides afterwards and catch up on things.

Shawn

cardiver · Post by **cardiver** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 6:47 pm

I would like nothing more than to do that, Shawn! Off at 2-3 on Monday and Thursday.

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:54 pm

I love Sunrise, it's my favorite local dive site. Glad to hear you had a good dive there. About the poachers, yep, seems like it's all too common there. A few of us saw a couple divers harvesting scallops in a ridiculously harmful way. We should've dumped their weights.

TCarter · Post by **TCarter** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:37 am

Shawn wrote:
Plus... It says right on the sign you walked by to get to the dive that only salmon trolling is allowed.

Actually I got to the site via the waterfront house area down the beach, but thanks for the info.

Yep Calvin, Sunrise is my absolute favorite shore dive in the Sound, though I don't hit it very often. Sorry to hear about the divers taking (poaching?) scallops. All the scallops down there give me the impression of jewelry, decorating the colorful rocks.

Shawn · Post by **Shawn** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:57 pm

Calvin did you try calling the WDFW poaching hotline when you left the water? Would be nice to see them get busted for their "efforts."

Shawn

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:20 pm

We didn't get too good of a look at their boat, because we didn't think they were doing anything wrong till we saw them underwater. When we got back up, they were gone.

enchantmentdivi · Post by **enchantmentdivi** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:45 pm

TCarter wrote:Actually I got to the site via the waterfront house area down the beach, but thanks for the info.

Just curious...are you referring to the houses right in front of the dive site? If so, do you own one of those houses? Or does a friend or family member?