Puget Sound
- Thread starter Stonedfish
- Start date
Caught 3 silvers this morning from the beach with @Stonedfish with many other strikes missed. The highlight for me was a fiesty 22-23" unclipped silver that took me to the reel and gave me hell. Best salmon fight since last September.
I fished Puget Sound yesterday for the 4th time in the last dozen years, despite living nearly within spitting distance of it. I fished with Captain Nick Clayton for the first time. It won't be the last if he'll have me back. As Nick posted, we didn't remove all the coho from Puget Sound. Just the biters. Speaking of biters, Captain Nick and I used the same fly pattern, but he got way more bites. Got me to thinkin' he was spitting something special on his fly that mine lacked.
The tide could have been better. The weather was pleasantly clear, sunny, and warm; just like Stonedfish hates. And just how does a 3# coho (or was it a 26# Chinook?) break off 12# RIO tippet? The RIO tippet I use for freshwater trout fishing seems plenty strong enough, but I'm beginning to think this RIO max saltwater stuff is junk. I don't think 8# Maxima would have broken under those same conditions.
Since a lot of these hatchery coho are Squaxin bound, I hope to get out in the coming weeks and terrorize my home water in Area 13.
The tide could have been better. The weather was pleasantly clear, sunny, and warm; just like Stonedfish hates. And just how does a 3# coho (or was it a 26# Chinook?) break off 12# RIO tippet? The RIO tippet I use for freshwater trout fishing seems plenty strong enough, but I'm beginning to think this RIO max saltwater stuff is junk. I don't think 8# Maxima would have broken under those same conditions.
Since a lot of these hatchery coho are Squaxin bound, I hope to get out in the coming weeks and terrorize my home water in Area 13.
.?Don’t go Sunday.
SF
MA9 OPEN this Sunday - corrected.?
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They opened it the last 2 days of July with Chinook closing.
Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet) closes for Chinook salmon retention; opens daily for hatchery coho and pink salmon
Action: Closes Chinook salmon retention. Opens daily for hatchery coho and pink salmon. Effective date: July 29 through July 31, 2023. Species
wdfw.wa.gov
Maxima Fluorocarbon 15 or 20 pound test
Didn’t you post the
They opened it the last 2 days of July with Chinook closing.
Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet) closes for Chinook salmon retention; opens daily for hatchery coho and pink salmon
Action: Closes Chinook salmon retention. Opens daily for hatchery coho and pink salmon. Effective date: July 29 through July 31, 2023. Species
@Nick Clayton dips all his clousers in pro cure and herring oil.
Yup. I need to forget the whole Thurs, Fri, Sat drill.
He catches more fish because his stingers are always up, like a gentleman.
How did your tippet break? At the knot? In the middle? Curly tail at the end?
Fun day with @Chucker on his boat this AM, we fished for 2 hours around each side of the low tide. Almost no tidal movement, very changing conditions, from dead calm wind to breezy and start of white caps, from bright sun to thick marine layer fog. Started working a weed line near where we have consistently found either bait or coho recently, no joy. No consistent signs of bait, just single herring would pop up here and there, but with patience sometimes a pattern will develop, a few more herring would pop up and then very short lived small puffs of frenzied herring at the surface and then gone again. We picked and released a rezzie coho casting at one of those puffs, then nada.
The most fun of the day was when we moved a bit looking for surface action and again a single herring, few more, the start of another small puff, @Chucker expertly positions the boat for casting at the ball without scaring it and as we are getting lines out for longer casts a coho burst at the surface between us and the boil, change of cast mid air, somehow the fly drops right on the splash, I grab the line for the first pull and the fish is already hooked! Lots of jumps and deep run, into the reel, into the net right as the sun clears the horizon. Two more coho came on flies, one casting at another puff, the other trolling/bucktailing a fly while searching for bait/birds. Bright sun and slack tide killed the surface action so we trolled/jigged trying to get a king, nada. Very thick marine layer rolled in, back to flies, nada. Trolled for a bit while getting ready to call it a day and picked our second keeper. Both fish were about the same length, but very different weight, the clipped female was shaped almost like a steelhead, long and skinny, while the unclipped male was very chunky, deep bodied and thick. Both empty stomachs. We saw a fly fisher casting from shore, quite a ways into the water, a not readily accessible beach which deepens quite fast, especially at low tide. A set of large breaking waves from a passing container ship seems to have caught him while still far from shore, hope you did not get too wet if you are reading this, we have all been there one time or another!
So all in all, good day on the water, almost no current, very little surface bait or birds, but with patience and heads on a swivel some action developed and sight fishing for surface coho with flies in the salt is hard to beat! Thanks @Chucker for taking me out!
The most fun of the day was when we moved a bit looking for surface action and again a single herring, few more, the start of another small puff, @Chucker expertly positions the boat for casting at the ball without scaring it and as we are getting lines out for longer casts a coho burst at the surface between us and the boil, change of cast mid air, somehow the fly drops right on the splash, I grab the line for the first pull and the fish is already hooked! Lots of jumps and deep run, into the reel, into the net right as the sun clears the horizon. Two more coho came on flies, one casting at another puff, the other trolling/bucktailing a fly while searching for bait/birds. Bright sun and slack tide killed the surface action so we trolled/jigged trying to get a king, nada. Very thick marine layer rolled in, back to flies, nada. Trolled for a bit while getting ready to call it a day and picked our second keeper. Both fish were about the same length, but very different weight, the clipped female was shaped almost like a steelhead, long and skinny, while the unclipped male was very chunky, deep bodied and thick. Both empty stomachs. We saw a fly fisher casting from shore, quite a ways into the water, a not readily accessible beach which deepens quite fast, especially at low tide. A set of large breaking waves from a passing container ship seems to have caught him while still far from shore, hope you did not get too wet if you are reading this, we have all been there one time or another!
So all in all, good day on the water, almost no current, very little surface bait or birds, but with patience and heads on a swivel some action developed and sight fishing for surface coho with flies in the salt is hard to beat! Thanks @Chucker for taking me out!
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Divad
Whitefish
After a few lost heads last summer I ditched all my big-game “fly tippet” when @G_Smolt turned me on to SunLine Sniper FC. Lost heads dropped drastically, I love it. It’s usually that, or for mono, Maxima.
Been playing with the SA Absolute 0x mono and so far so good. Those are my three goto’s for big game right now.
Been playing with the SA Absolute 0x mono and so far so good. Those are my three goto’s for big game right now.
Went down to the beach today after work.
Got one of the nicest looking resident coho I've seen, 5lbs right on the dot. Bigger than some of the ocean runs I caught last September.
You gotta wonder how big these fish can get. I bet these 5lbers in July turn into 7-8 lbers by September/October.
Got one of the nicest looking resident coho I've seen, 5lbs right on the dot. Bigger than some of the ocean runs I caught last September.
You gotta wonder how big these fish can get. I bet these 5lbers in July turn into 7-8 lbers by September/October.
Word must have broadcast on Humpy.net that some have showed up. The flocks are showing, the bull shit is flying and the usual cast of every two year characters have arrived.
Some of the best so far this morning….
“those Bush Point homeowners are a bunch of fucking assholes”.
Pro tip overhead…..”Rotators rule over buzzbombs but you need 3 beads, not 2!”
SF
Some of the best so far this morning….
“those Bush Point homeowners are a bunch of fucking assholes”.
Pro tip overhead…..”Rotators rule over buzzbombs but you need 3 beads, not 2!”
SF
johnnyboy -
The port samplers at Everett have already checked several 7# hatchery coho from MA 9.
In years like this with lots of bait I think the potential for those resident coho would be 8 to 10#. However, I do not expect to see many of such fish. We as a group have opted instead to maximize the harvest of those resident coho early in their summer growth cycle. Fsihing on them in June and early July not only harvest lots of fish it selects for the faster growing fish, thus the majority of those fish that may have been destined to be 8#ers have already been removed from the population.
Curt
The port samplers at Everett have already checked several 7# hatchery coho from MA 9.
In years like this with lots of bait I think the potential for those resident coho would be 8 to 10#. However, I do not expect to see many of such fish. We as a group have opted instead to maximize the harvest of those resident coho early in their summer growth cycle. Fsihing on them in June and early July not only harvest lots of fish it selects for the faster growing fish, thus the majority of those fish that may have been destined to be 8#ers have already been removed from the population.
Curt
While the top fish could be a snake prickleback (@Stonedfish) or a bay goby, I'm leaning more to one of the pholids/stichaeids (gunnels/pricklebacks) that inhabit the same shallow eelgrass beds as the shiner perch. Just about all the pholids/stichaeids have small pectoral fins and several lack pelvic fins entirely; this is consistent with what I can see in that partially-digested specimen. If you look carefully at the dorsal region near the caudal fin, you can see some of the U/V-shaped dark markings that are characteristic of saddleback gunnels (Pholis ornata)(see here and here). My 2 cents.I bet 5 sand dollars on the top fish being a bay goby
Talk about FOMO on coho, Jason is the biggest contributor to the problem here.
I fished for about an hour and a half this morning, all was quiet on the Seattle western front. Nice to have met @Wiznet out there.
Steve
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