Herring on Friday 3/3

I am headed to newport to target herring.  Getting decent reports from friends. 

Let me know if any of you plan on joining.  This is one of my favorite fisheries and i believe that its some of the best bait when targeting other ocean species.  They are full of spawn this time of year which makes a juicy and smelly presentation.

I’m in.

I may end up going, 80% chance rain tho...

I will be in a drysuit and fishing so i am not too bothered by the rain.  The herring are already wet so i doubt the rain will affect them haha.

I plan on launching at the Hatfield marine parking lot and making my way across the bay.  I will most likely drop a crab pot or two on my way out.  Fish until i get a limit then head back in.

Not too sure on launch time but will be getting there and launching near 8-9 hopefully.

For those who have not done it in the past bring ice and salt to limit scale loss

I wish I did not have to work. I will save my playing hookie days for good ocean conditions.....

I wish I did not have to work. I will save my playing hookie days for good ocean conditions.....

They should stick around newport for a few weeks.  Weekends can get really crowded and i am unable to go on this weekend because of my sons first birthday party.

For those who have not done it in the past bring ice and salt to limit scale loss

I'm looking at making my first herring trip to CoosBay soon, can you describe the process for them once on the kayak and drive home to the freezer?  cheers, roger

I don’t know how Zach does it, but I use about half a box of brining/pickling salt, a 7 pound bag of ice and a few gallons of bay water.  Throw it all in your cooler, now you have a 29-29 degree brine.
Drop the herring off the sabaki into the brine and they start freezing. No wiggling or flopping.
At home the mostly frozen herring are put on baking sheets covered with parchment paper. Freeze for 24 hours and then vacuum pack.

For those who have not done it in the past bring ice and salt to limit scale loss

I'm looking at making my first herring trip to CoosBay soon, can you describe the process for them once on the kayak and drive home to the freezer?  cheers, roger

The "right" way to do it is to create a slurry of seawater, ice, and rock salt in a bucket or cooler. Throw the herring in the slurry. It'll be super cold and will kill the herring almost instantly. Be careful, it'll burn your hands if you dip them in it! You can try to vac seal them fresh if you have a chamber vac, but the traditional vac sealer will suck a lot of slime/gametes out of the herring and make a mess. If you have a traditional vac sealer, you can lay out the herring on a tray and freeze individually, then vac seal them into packages the next day.

I used to do all that, but nowadays, I just throw them in a cooler. Take them home. Throw them into gallon Ziplock freezer bags and into the chest freezer, roughly 20 herring per bag. When thawed, these herring aren't quite as shiny or firm as those you prep using the "slurry method", but the lingcod don't care (that's what 90% of them get eaten by). I also chop some of them up to stuff them into Brad's Cut Plugs for salmon trolling. I typically prefer orange to green label sized herring for salmon fishing, and most of the spawner herring are blue label and bigger. There are situations where blues, and even purples, are a good Chinook bait though.

Due to work I am having to change my day from Friday to Monday. I will create a separate thread for that to avoid confusion.

My method matches that of clay man and monkey fist. I put them into ice and salt to kill them. I then use ziplock bags and throw them into the freezer. I used to vacuum seal 10 at a time with a paper towel at the top of the bag to catch the juices.

Like clay man said I use these for lingcod halibut and large rockfish. I do not use these for salmon. I will cut one up and put it in a cut plug super bait or stuff it into a similar bait. These are full of spawn and don’t make the best salmon.

I switched to ziplock bags over vacuum seal because it was cheaper and quicker. Processing 200 fish is a chore and I like to throw them in a bag with some sea salt or other course salts. The salt will keep them firm and on the hook longer. I find that when I add salt it helps a lot. The fish thawed out with the salt and it keeps them firm in my opinion. I have noticed ones I do not salt when I freeze and they are a bit more soft.

thanks all for the info/tips, much appreciated.

Let the spawn begin...or at least keep going.
I make a brine as monkeyfist noted above.  Typically, I vacuum seal about 6-10 herring per chamber bag the same day I catch them.  It's time consuming, but the baits are in excellent condition when I go to use them for anything later in the season (lings, halibut, tuna chum, salmon).  I usually sort the herring by size in a dishpan (that gets super disgusting) - there's usually medium big and huge size categories (blue/purple/black?).  I use my recycled chamber bags from salmon/halibut/tuna so it was fishy when new but viable for clean bait.  Spawners are not the best choice for cut-plug or whole salmon baits - I usually jig for summer herring when I want a nice supply of those.  Good luck and have fun, I love the herring fishery.