Non-Fly 2024 Summer Salmon

Anyone see the seasons this year? I am astounded. We are quickly approaching the point where I question if I want my license money going to Hatchery Chinook we never get to catch.

I'll be trying something new this year and spending the night in the Port Angeles marina to participate in the Chinook fishery over there. Two hour run from Edmonds where we moor isn't too shabby, but it's upsetting when you know the fish are here in droves just 10 minutes away
 
Resident coho on jeff head has been kinda crap, fished 125 in between 140-200fow. Lots of marks, lots of bait, but the size of the marks makes me think Blackmouth. Confidently say the blackmouth around were decently sized hard fighters, plenty of weight on them, but as far as WDFW is concerned I am "just guessing". Forgot to bring terminal tackle for the second downrigger so fished with just one, might drop the second to the bottom if next time is the same and see how that goes. Two rockfish surprisingly, and yet both swam down vigorously, including a canary with barotrauma I was sure was a goner. Surprised WDFW doesn't require descending devices for salmon trolling past certain depths.

Loving the Raymarine 1k transducer. Super reliable, super high definition image. Opened the throttle on the new boat for the first time too, glass smooth at 43mph, smoother than it is at 25 funny enough
 
speedbird said:
Resident coho on jeff head has been kinda crap, fished 125 in between 140-200fow. Lots of marks, lots of bait, but the size of the marks makes me think Blackmouth. Confidently say the blackmouth around were decently sized hard fighters, plenty of weight on them, but as far as WDFW is concerned I am "just guessing". Forgot to bring terminal tackle for the second downrigger so fished with just one, might drop the second to the bottom if next time is the same and see how that goes. Two rockfish surprisingly, and yet both swam down vigorously, including a canary with barotrauma I was sure was a goner. Surprised WDFW doesn't require descending devices for salmon trolling past certain depths.

Loving the Raymarine 1k transducer. Super reliable, super high definition image. Opened the throttle on the new boat for the first time too, glass smooth at 43mph, smoother than it is at 25 funny enough
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You might try out deeper for those coho. Last time I fished out there I was fishing shipping lanes out in 400 to 500 ft of water. Typically about 75 ft on the wire
 
Jeff Head can hold lots of food and fish at times, but it's not the only place to find those fish. Those things move around a ton, especially this time of year. If you aren't catching in a short while, it's time to move.

Last week Ira picked me up in Kingston and we didn't make it more than a few hundred yards before the we found rippy water showing signs of bait. We put lines in and started catching. We were done by like 9 am or something including releasing a fair amount of coho. The charters struggled at Jeff all day, and the next several days. They then spent several productive days in the area we found them before they moved on again.

Find fishy water, and you're likely to catch them.
 
Nick Clayton said:
Jeff Head can hold lots of food and fish at times, but it's not the only place to find those fish. Those things move around a ton, especially this time of year. If you aren't catching in a short while, it's time to move.

Last week Ira picked me up in Kingston and we didn't make it more than a few hundred yards before the we found rippy water showing signs of bait. We put lines in and started catching. We were done by like 9 am or something including releasing a fair amount of coho. The charters struggled at Jeff all day, and the next several days. They then spent several productive days in the area we found them before they moved on again.

Find fishy water, and you're likely to catch them.
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Ton of tide rips showing with the calm water these days too.

It sucks with the encounter system we have nowadays, I would like to spend a day catch and releasing Kings with jigs but don't want to knowing how it will screw up fishing in August. Might have to spend time in the bubble
 
Anybody using spin fish out in the ocean? I got some in herring aid that I'm planning on running out at Neah Bay.

Are there any different rigging techniques I need to be aware of?
 
Honestly, use whatever you want in the ocean. It really doesn't matter.

I've been running the oldest, crustiest flashers I can dig up, and been fishing ridiculous flies tied with Easter grass, and absolutely crushing fish this season. I'm more convinced than ever that none of the silly shit we fuss about truly matters 99% of the time. Fish what appeals to you, drag it in front of some fish, and you'll catch.

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I wish my dad had more time off in the summer because I would’ve loved to do a family trip in the San Juan’s for this opener, unfortunately we went to possession bar, for probably the last time this year until silvers show up. Absolute zoo. At least 500 boats out there if not more. Made the mistake of starting out in horseshoe hole thinking it would be less crowded but the strong currents, plus lots of boats, created a miserable time. Moved over to the west bar and got into one. I was still in high teens king mode from our trip to Tofino and messed up and set the drag to lose thinking the fish was gonna break off and lost it. Fortunately we got into another one later. 26” 7.7 lb female, I’d hazard to guess a mature blackmouth. Fun fight. I have a theory that coho in the 5-10lb size class fight harder pound for pound than kings in the same class, but I have to catch more to find out.

No more bites rest of the day, but saw lots of coho playing in the rips. Gonna be back with my fly rod as soon as I can. Most folks are courteous and polite in the trolling fleet, some people less so but I try to be forgiving in case I am acting like the latter unknowingly.

Lost a downrigger ball while it was at the surface somehow, didn’t take the boat faster than 4kts but the current is no joke. Always nice to be out though.
 
Little extra write up from yesterday but I’m now hooked on the plug bite. Fight is a ton more fun without a flasher to worry about, and counter intuitively the larger hooks seem to more reliably get hooked in easy to remove parts of the mouth and do less damage. They also were outstanding at keeping shakers off. Started out with a herring aid skinny g, I saw tons of experienced folks fishing plugs last opener, had a great report from Kyle over at pnwbestlife on them too, and decided to throw down my brand new silver horde plug. Never had luck before but figured what the hell. I’ve read that you get better action trolling faster with plugs but I think silver hordes might be better suited to slow trolls than tomics as we had a ton of action with 30 degrees on the downrigger. Learning to break the “Kings always on bottom” rule sometimes. I keep my rods on the bottom when there’s no bait on the sounder and when the baits near or on the bottom which is frequent at Jeff head. Two fish came from the bottom and one of our retained fish from suspended. I’m hesitant to talk about released or lost fish knowing how our encounter system works but I will just say the fishing was excellent for our boat and I worked hard to find ocean fish but just couldn’t manage one. 4/0 hook on the 5” plug may have given more action as I know most people use 6/0.

Put @BigFishRandy ‘s little brother on his first king! He landed it like a pro, even with a bad back!

The plug absolutely smashed the spoon. Not a single fish hit the spoon rod so we swapped it to another plug. I only had one of the hot color (will stock myself for next season, but gonna hold onto this particular example for life as I hear each individual plug has a slightly different action. Might start using a bobber stop to protect it) 4” purple haze stripe with a rattle. That rod was on fire- for bottom fish. Two dogfish, more yellow rockfish than I cared to count, and a pacific cod of all things decided to check it out. Was going to send down my kitchen sink 4” kingfisher but limited out before we could.

Average size was a little underwhelming, all three of our fish were 8lbs and two were definitely blackmouth. Regretted keeping one when I saw how small her eggs were but the hook messed up her gill plate pretty bad, and honestly a hatchery 28” fish has probably lived a good enough life. Shame she didn’t stick around to be a 12lber next spring but I’m sure her many sisters and brothers will. Highlight of the trip was not the best chinook fishing I’ve ever had in Puget sound but the humpback whales we saw around 8 o clock. They stayed in the area for around an hour, it appeared to be a mother and an adolescent.

Creel reports showing good but not great fishing (0.25 per boat) so i am optimistic for days in August. If our shaker encounter rate of genuinely, honestly, no BS 0 was reflective of other boats we are good on that front too. Had two reports of decent sized coho, and saw a couple schools really shallow, so I might be out on jeff head with the fly rod and clousers next week too. An old timer at the dry dock in a gorgeous Montauk gave me tips for mooching in this area as well, something I’ll probably try my hands at next opener.
 
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Got to Elliot bay a little late today, around 5:45. One takedown on the plug at 6:10 or so immediately as I dropped the downrigger and nothing else all day except a 2lb resi. Tried hoochie with a herring strip, kingfisher spoons. Plenty of fish around but nothing willing to bite besides the plug fish that didn’t stick
 
speedbird said:
Got to Elliot bay a little late today, around 5:45. One takedown on the plug at 6:10 or so immediately as I dropped the downrigger and nothing else all day except a 2lb resi. Tried hoochie with a herring strip, kingfisher spoons. Plenty of fish around but nothing willing to bite besides the plug fish that didn’t stick
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Did you launch from West Seattle?

Does anyone know if the gate is still closed until 6am? Are people driving around it?
 
I fished the bay this morning as well, but we launched from the river under the 1st Ave Bridge early.
talked with one guy who said they arrived at 5:45 and the gate was open at Don Armeni launch.. So I don't really know what time it actually opened.
how was the fishing? slow. 4 shakers in the boat on various tackle but no keepers.
saw a few keepers caught between 8-9 but no real bite. the 6:00 am bite was not there.
lots of people at Duwamish Head - not sure how they did as we stayed between the east and west waterways. don't go too far east as the Coast Guard will shoo you away from the military boat moored on docks.
Going Saturday and Sunday and hope to figure it out.
 
Did some scoping for the Derby today. Caught one black mouth that was just barely legal.

At it all day tomorrow with the kids for hopefully their Derby winner, and then pull in the boat to go up to nine for the opener there on Sunday
 
dep said:
I fished the bay this morning as well, but we launched from the river under the 1st Ave Bridge early.
talked with one guy who said they arrived at 5:45 and the gate was open at Don Armeni launch.. So I don't really know what time it actually opened.
how was the fishing? slow. 4 shakers in the boat on various tackle but no keepers.
saw a few keepers caught between 8-9 but no real bite. the 6:00 am bite was not there.
lots of people at Duwamish Head - not sure how they did as we stayed between the east and west waterways. don't go too far east as the Coast Guard will shoo you away from the military boat moored on docks.
Going Saturday and Sunday and hope to figure it out.
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Near the head is where I had my first takedown, saw two others by saltys
 
Well it's a wrap for my fishing weekend. And not too much to show for it. Fishing in the South humbled me this weekend with only a single black mouth to show for 15 hours of fishing. Today we had many more opportunities, but our only 🏆 was a quality 17 lber from up North in 9.

Great to see some members here at the launch! You guys are fishier than me.
 
ThatGuyRyRy said:
Well it's a wrap for my fishing weekend. And not too much to show for it. Fishing in the South humbled me this weekend with only a single black mouth to show for 15 hours of fishing. Today we had many more opportunities, but our only 🏆 was a quality 17 lber from up North in 9.

Great to see some members here at the launch! You guys are fishier than me.
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It was nice meeting you! It was pretty slow out there for us today too but heated up right at slack low. First kings on a jig for me. Lots of fun. I can see doing more of that in the future.
 
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