Non-Fly 2025 Summer Salmon

Smalma said:
Last Friday, I hit MA10 with my son for some mooching for Chinook. By fishing the second day of the 3-day opener and avoid the mess at Jeff head hoped to find some elbow room.

After an hour or so trying to fish in spaces relatively free of trollers I hooked a nice fish with not a single troller within a 100 yards or so. After a couple minutes a boat with 3 downriggers decided to see what we were up to. In spite of us waving them off and alerting them we had a nice fish on (looked to be in the mid-teens) they continued their course towards us getting within 50 feet just as the Chinook decided to head for the surface. Sure enough fish was into their downrigger wire and good by fish. The other boat was so unaware of what was going on they were not aware that the fish had tangled in their gear and to rub a little salt in the wound said sorry that I had lost the fish.

About an hour later the crowd had thinned and we were making a drift over some bait. I watch a boat 150 yards away from use head towards us. With next closest boat more than 50 yards away they continued to head towards and as they were maybe fifty feet away I hook another Chinook. Predictably as the passed 20 feet of our bow the fish found their downrigger and good by fish. Again the anglers in the other boat were unaware of what was going on. The cherry on the day that same boat looped around as we made another dirft. As they passed us at a decent distance they checked their gear finding a mooching rig tangled in their gear. I could only shake my head at the WTF look the angler's face when he saw my mooching sinker/leader tangled in his flasher.

Such is PS Chinook fishing in todays world.

My one and only day chasing Chinook on Puget Sound. I would vote for eliminating downriggers (at least some days) in Puget Sound in a heartbeat.
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Or at least hand crank only. I think that would keep a lot of lazy people home. At least you earn it a little bit if you have to bring that weight up each time. I've found the trollers like to come close even when they do know you have one trying to hook one also. I don't think they realize though that it isn't being drug behind the boat at 4knots.
 
The goofy thing about the other day is that in the last 20 years I can only remember losing one other Chinook to another angler's gear.
 
Took my wife and teenager kids pinks fishing today in MA11, slow start in the late morning until pinks started rolling in around 1:30 with the incoming.
I ran around to where the fish are and casted buzz bomb at them, let the kids reel in once hooked.
Missed a bunch, landed 3.

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Kfish said:
Took my wife and teenager kids pinks fishing today in MA11, slow start in the late morning until pinks started rolling in around 1:30 with the incoming.
I ran around to where the fish are and casted buzz bomb at them, let the kids reel in once hooked.
Missed a bunch, landed 3.

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Boy looks like the weather turned around. Cool, cloudy, and pretty breezy when we got off the water around 11am!
 
Watched a boat try to take out a bunch of kayakers and paddle boarders this morning. Looked like they had the attitude that everyone needs to move out of their way. They made a couple passes through the group, one time getting mad because their line caught a paddle boarder they almost hit. This wasn’t even a place crazy with boats. Mostly kayakers and paddle boarders catching pinks and the one boat trolling for kings through the group.
 
My kids have lost faith in my ability to catch fish. They wanted salmon for dinner and I told them we needed to catch it today. My son said, “well that won’t happen”.

And he wasn’t wrong as I lost 2 more today and am like 0 for my last 10 or so. At least my daughter also lost one, so I am not the only one losing fish 😂.
 
Took my son and nephew to fish humpies today, slow at first until slack low jumpers showed up with regularity. It was a run and gun operation zipping back and forth to put them within buzzbomb range. The boys had a fun time seeing huge pods of salmon swimming below the boat chasing their lures. Landed 4, lost a whole bunch more.

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My local Columbia River stretch has been open since Aug 1 and I've been out 4 times. Hooked quite a few fish, but lost most of them. Weeds have been really, really bad. I'd say over half the time I've been out, it's been unfishable. I really hope that changes soon.
 
in the last 2 days I think I have seen more fish stolen by the harbor seals than I have seen in my last 20 years of fishing from the beach. You would think after 5 or 6 fish they would be full for a little bit. Watched one steal 3 fish in a row. It would just drop the fish it had in its mouth and grab the next one someone hooked near it.
 
Pretty good sizes of wild coho up in possession right now, not at all like last year but lots of 5-7lb fish. 6 wilds and 2 hatchery’s. Hatchery’s were both 3-4lbs, probably resis. Ran a 2/0siwash behind a 7 bead chain set back from a uv ace high fly by one 8mm bead, very few short strikes and great hookups, clean releases on all, even one that decided to drive the hook deep into my index finger. Cut the line asap before he could do more damage and send me to the hospital for stitches, but still got the hook out, it had gone completely through the jaw. When when of the fish we hooked came to the net I all of a sudden noticed two extra hooks and a leader in the net that I had no recollection of owning. A closer inspection found a frayed knot at the tail end of the leader. Maybe fortune had us hook him just to remove that rig.

The other rod ran double hooks, uv flasher with glow ace high fly and barely got touched. Unfortunately one of the wilds got gill hooked bad. The hook came out but it was bleeding profusely. Despite that, it swam away vigorously. I doubt it will survive but I don’t feel too bad about following the law, I gave it a chance and if it doesn’t work out something else will eat it. It stays in the ecosystem. Kind of makes me laugh at the “swam away strong” comments I see made at people calling out bad-atrocious fish handling.

Also caught real chunky pink, I didn’t troll for pinks at all this year but if I do next time I’ll be sure to run coho gear at coho speeds- I always catch bigger humpys doing that, and resis or early ocean coho to go with them.

First and I think biggest of the day

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The rascal that decided to drive the hook in my finger

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The lottery winner coho- Thought I had a nice pregut photo of all three fish but I think my finger slipped and I didn't actually take it

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